Boot Loader ?

mi6091 · 01-09-2010, 08:12 AM

I had(have) Fedora 10 installed on my computer and was working ok with a dual boot with win Vista. Yesterday I installed Windows 7 ... and now I can boot only in Windows. Any Ideas how can I fix my boot loader ?

onebuck · 01-09-2010, 08:16 AM

Hi,

You wiped the bootloader.

What about the Linux Install? How did you install M$7? If you let the M$ installer wipe/format the whole drive then a re-install will be necessary. If not then your M$ bootloader will have to be modified to boot linux or re-install grub/lilo to boot your installs.

multios · 01-09-2010, 08:18 AM

which bootloader are you using?
I'm not familiar with the Windows systems you have, but you might trying logging in with administrator, run fdisk and set the fedora partition as active and then reboot.

pixellany · 01-09-2010, 08:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by multios

which bootloader are you using?
I'm not familiar with the Windows systems you have, but you might trying logging in with administrator, run fdisk and set the fedora partition as active and then reboot.

Nope....
Setting a partition as active has no relevance in Linux.

What happened is that Windows put it's own bootloader in.

Simply boot up from any Linux LiveCD and reinstall GRUB from there.

mi6091 · 01-09-2010, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onebuck

Hi,

You wiped the bootloader.

What about the Linux Install? How did you install M$7? If you let the M$ installer wipe/format the whole drive then a re-install will be necessary. If not then your M$ bootloader will have to modified to boot linux or re-install grub/lilo to boot your installs.

I've formated the old windows partition.

How can I Install a new Grub ? or how to modify the Windows one ?

... I had an ubuntu x64 CD under hand ... but when I tried to install grub from it from recovery mode .. it said .it will delete some files... and I have impotant ones on my linux hard

mi6091 · 01-09-2010, 08:37 AM

I did it! or at least Fedora came to life ;] ... the ubuntu x64 disked worked...I mounted a rescue system on the partition with linux... and there were option rebuild grub

mi6091 · 01-09-2010, 08:38 AM

Thank You for your posts

PhoenixAndThor · 01-09-2010, 08:38 AM

The first thing I would do is start the computer with a live CD that has Gparted (nice partition manager) to see exactly what the Vista install did to your hard drive. I recommend Puppy Linux because it also has a tool to reinstall grub (the old version, not Grub 2). Since there are still issues with Grub 2, and it is technically still a beta, you should stick to Grub legacy. You have to use Gparted to set your Fedora partition as bootable (right click on partition, flags) Also, you will manually have to put an entry into the menu.lst file for Grub to boot Vista:

title Vista (or whatever you want)
root (hdx,x) replace the x's with whatever partition vista is installed on.
makeactive (trick vista into thinking that it still has its boot flag set)
chainloader +1 (Tell Grub to transfer control to Vista's boot loader, "shoved over" during Grub install)

Grub uses an odd naming convention for partitions. It starts from the first partion of the first drive, like this:

(hd0,0)

Make sure to install Grub to the root of your hard drive, or if you have two hard drives, whichever hard drive has your Fedora install on it.

That should do it.

pixellany · 01-09-2010, 08:42 AM

Boot from any Linux live CD and get into a terminal.

First, run "fdisk -l" to confirm the drive and partition numbering. Let's assume that your Linux /boot is on a separate partition, sda2. The grub equivalent is hd0,1.

To install grub:

Code:

grub   ##starts the GRUB shell
root (hd0,1)   ##points GRUB to the location of /boot
setup (hd0) ##installs GRUB to the MBR of the #1 drive.