The hard drive that used to be drive C when this was a Windows machine, and then became hda under Linux, died a week or so ago. I replaced it with a new hard drive, and reinstalled all the stuff that was on there - nothing lost.

EXCEPT that it won't boot. Fortunately, I have a GRUB boot floppy so can still work, but NOWHERE can I find how to create a MBR or boot sector in Linux. Various sites suggest using a Windows 3.1 boot floppy and doing an FDISK /MBR - but surely that's a cop-out, and anyway I don't have a Win 3.1 boot floppy any more. The last one I had self-destructed years ago.

Is there really no Linux command that will create an MBR on hda?

Then, how do I get GRUB boot onto it? I have the menu.lst and all the rest. All I have to do once the GRUB floppy has started is type
configfile (hd0,0)/grub/menu.lst and off we go - with all the different distros on the machine available to select.

You list a few distributions, so even if I knew/remembered the right distribution specific details, I wouldn't know which to provide.

I did a quick google search and the top several hits I found were all just suggestions to get those instructions from man grub-install or info grub-install. I'm not at a Linux system now to check how obvious the answer will be within that man or info output.

You also might try Grub documentation, such as
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...ode/index.html
Notice sections 3.2 and 3.3

does grub-install not work in this case ?

I've never had a problem after issuing "liloconfig". I did have problems
trying to figure out the esoteric GrUB info, which seems to be where
this thread is heading.

You don't create an mbr you install grub to it. If you have a grub boot floppy, put it in the drive and at the grub prompt (grub>)type:

root (hd0,0)(assuming Linux is on sda1, hit enter)
setup (hd0)(hit enter)
quit(hit enter)

after you booted using the floppy:

check the file
/boot/grub/menu.lst
or
/boot/grub/grub.conf

if the contents are o.k. - should be the case if you partitioned your new drive the same way as your old one
(...and as you can use it to boot using the floppy)

then issue:

grub-install --no-floppy /dev/_your_device

and you should be good

Thank you! So easy when you know how. Worked perfectly.

grub> quit brought up an error message "Error 27: Unrecognised command", but the reset button took care of that.

Job done!