Hello, i installed mepis 8 on my dell d610 with windows xp and windows 2000 already on it.it worked fine till i decided to delete windows 2000's partition and merge the free space with another partition.the grub did not load after the reboot.i used fdisk/mbr from dos cd to get the windows boot loader back and it worked fine.but now when i try to install pclinuxos kde 2010, the grub gives me error.the installation goes without any problem but when system reboots there is no grub, instead windows boot loader is shown.i can see all files in the destination partition if i boot from live cd but when i tried to install grub through terminal,the "find" and "root" commands work fine but when you try to use "setup(hda)" to install grub on mbr, it says "no such partition".please help me. thanks in advance.

Your drives are probably /dev/sdX and not /dev/hdX.

Look at the output of

a lower-case l not a 1, as root, to see how the drives are named.

2 members found this post helpful.

When you delete a partition, the numbering of the other partitions changes which is likely what happened when you deleted w2k.

The command in grub is: setup (hd0) not hda and you need the space. That's a zero not a Letter O.

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Hi guys,i did what you suggested but the problem remains.here is the output


grub> find /boot/grub/stage2
(hd0,8)

grub> root (hd0,8)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 17 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+17 p (hd0,8)/boot/grub/stage2
/boot/grub/menu.lst"... failed

Error 22: No such partition



[root@localhost root]# fdisk -l
omitting empty partition (5)

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders, total 117210240 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa089a089

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 20980889 10490413+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 20980890 117210239 48114675 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 20980953 59970644 19494846 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 59970708 106125389 23077341 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda7 106125453 107764019 819283+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8 107764083 117210239 4723078+ 83 Linux

First I would like to strongly suggest that you use code tags on your output text to make it easier to read, and to decipher the difference between what you're typing to us and what you're showing in your examples.

Try booting to the live cd and find and mount your linux partition. Then issue the following command:

Change x to one of (a,b, c) for "sda, etc".
Change y to number (sba1, sba2, etc).

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi Larry, i did what you said and here is the output of install-grub


[root@localhost root]# install-grub --root-directory=/dev/sda8 /dev/sda
bash: install-grub: command not found

then i tried to use grub-install and here is the output

[root@localhost root]# grub-install --root-directory=/dev/sda8 /dev/sda
mkdir: cannot create directory `/dev/sda8/boot': Not a directory

here it says "not a directory" but i can see this folder in filemanager

although i am logged in as root (on live cd) i even tried to user the command exactly as you wrote (with sudo) but still same result.

and here is the result of grub-update

[root@localhost root]# sudo grub-update
sudo: grub-update: command not found

look at the output of fdisk-l i posted earlier and you will know that my pclinuxos is installed on sda8.

Your problem started when you installed Grub on PCLinuxOS partition rather than to the master boot record. If you do that, you will need to configure the windows bootloader with an entry for PCLinux. It's very much simpler to install Grub.

I find it interesting that you currently get the output below:

since you have Grub Legacy which counts partitions from zero which would make (hd0,8) sda9. Your fdisk does not show a partition sda9. Do you have sda9? Or are you using something other than the PCLinux CD to run these commands? Don't use sudo if you're using PCLinux CD.
Did you create a mount point for sda8 and then mount it using the LiveCD as suggested above before you ran the commands?

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi, Yancek. Can you tell me what harm will occur from using "sudo" when issuing a command that requires special access?

Thanks.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

Hi yancek, when i installed pclinuxos i installed grub on mbr and installition completed without any errors.But when when i rebooted the system there was no grub.
I am using pclinuxos cd to issue these commands, logged in as root.and i don't have sda9.I didn't had to create a mount point for pclinuxos partition which is sda8,since it's entry was already in /etc/mtab and the directory(mount point) was already created,here is what my /etc/mtab says:

/dev/root / rootfs rw 0 0
none /proc proc rw 0 0
none /dev/pts devpts rw 0 0
none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw 0 0
/dev/sda6 /media/DATA vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=0,utf8,shortname=mixed,flush 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/WINDOWS\040XP vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,uid=0,utf8,shortname=mixed,flush 0 0
/dev/sda5 /media/Documents fuseblk rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=512 0 0
/dev/sda8 /media/disk ext3 rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal 0 0

Hi, Stranger. It appears that your grub is corrupted. There might be other ways, but if you would issue the commands I gave you it'll provide you with an integrity install.

Yancek got the impression from your other message (which was hard to read because of the lack of using code tag) that you had installed your grub on a partition rather than the drive itself. Regardless of the way you initially performed the grub install, since it isn't working you can install it anew with the command I gave you.

By the way, I strongly suggest that you consider using code tags for your output file content and other items that you're not necessarily typing to us. It'll make your messages much easier to read. You'll in turn be showing courteousness consideration to the users you're hoping to study your messages and help you.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm just seeing this messages. I hadn't saw it before (my previous post). I'm studying your content to see what is going wrong.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

Ok, Stranger. I see where you're going wrong. You have to install grub in a mounted partition. I had suggested that you mount it, but I made a mistake and specified the special device (the raw partition) rather than the mounted filesystem.

Check to see where your /dev/sda8 is mounted and use that as your root-directory.

For example:

If you already have the drive mounted you don't have to make the directory and mount it. Just install grub on that partition.

Since you're logged in as root, you don't have to issue the "sudo" command. While it won't help, it won't hurt. I include it because I use an OS which has the root disabled by default. Even on the machines where its enabled, I still try not to log in as root.

I'm not tell you not to. It's just something I don't do.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi Larry,i did what you just told me and here is the output

[root@localhost root]# sudo mkdir /mnt/sda8
[root@localhost root]# mount /dev/sda8 /mnt/sda8
[root@localhost root]# grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sda8 /dev/sda
The file /mnt/sda8/boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly.
[root@localhost root]# update-grub
bash: update-grub: command not found
[root@localhost root]# sudo update-grub
sudo: update-grub: command not found

although sda8 was already mounted on /media/disk i mounted it on /mnt/sda8 anway and now it is mounted on both.i realy don't know what you mean when you advice to use "tag codes", because i am new to this forum and this is my first post.
what you said about not logging in as root is true, and i agree but i am just doing it because

1):i am logged in on a live cd

2):right now i am troubleshooting and really don't want to write sudo before every command.

thanks for the advice though.

problem is that i have even deleted the linux partition from windows, created new one,installed pclinux on it and the problem still remains the same.

I'm studying the error message you're getting from grub-install. I hope others will have suggestions in the meantime. At a glance it appears there might be a problem with your Linux install where the boot kernel files are stored (stored in /boot by default).

The code tags are (without the spaces between the brackets):

[ code ]
your text, output, or code here
[ /code ]

With the spaces moved it'll look like:

If you use code tags your messages will be easier to read. You'll probably get better responses because while the gurus are browsing the forums, it'll be easier to identify the problems in your code or output.

It's separate the output from the text you're typing in as a description or explanation.

-- L. James

--
L. D. James
ljames@apollo3.com
www.apollo3.com/~ljames

1 members found this post helpful.

None. It's not necesary was my point. When I he uses it on PCLinux he will probably get an error message "user is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported". Unless he has put his user in the sudoers file, this would appear and since it's a new install??

In your initial post you refer to Mepis. Did you install PCLinuxOS over Mepis? You have only one Linux partition.
Are you using the most recent version of PCLinuxOS. I ask because your mtab output shows ext3 filesystem. On my install it showx ext4.

If you indeed have PCLinux on sda8 you should be able to install to the mbr with these consecutive commands:

root (hd0,7)
setup (hd0)
quit

Additionally, the update-grub command is specific to Grub2 which is used primarily by Debian/Ubuntu and that's why you get the error messages.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-found-886655/