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Old 12-19-2008, 06:09 PM   #1
msrpower
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Reinstalling Grub


Hi, i`ve installed Ubuntu on my external USB Hard-disk ans it places the GRUB in the MBR of my laptop`s internal HD.

How can I reinstall GRUB on the MBR of the external HD ?

thanks in advance.
 
Old 12-19-2008, 06:21 PM   #2
yancek
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Need more info to give you accurate instructions. Incidentally, what happened (installing Grub to mbr of primary disk) is default behavior and if you don't want that you need to manually make changes. Assuming you can log into your system, run this command:

sudo fdisk -l (Lower case Letter L, not a one)

Post the output here.
Post the output of the file /boot/grub/menu.lst

Number and type of operating systems would be helpful also, particularly what you have on the internal drive and how you boot it. If you place Grub for Ubuntu only on the mbr of the external drive, you will need to change BIOS boot order whenever you want to boot it.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 06:06 AM   #3
msrpower
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Hi yancek, thanks for the answer,

Quote:
Originally Posted by yancek
If you place Grub for Ubuntu only on the mbr of the external drive, you will need to change BIOS boot order whenever you want to boot it
yes, this is what i wanna do. I want to remove the GRUB of the primary boot disk and change the boot order whenever I want to boot it.

The command fdisk -l results :

Code:
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe9e6bd8e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       14594   117218304    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5b6ac646

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       14957   120142071   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2           14958       15200     1951897+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3           15201       30401   122102032+   7  HPFS/NTFS
I want to remove the GRUB from sda and place it in the sdb.

Last edited by msrpower; 12-20-2008 at 06:26 AM.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 07:11 AM   #4
Larry Webb
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I presume you have sdb set to be first boot.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 07:37 AM   #5
CJS
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Msrpower, to install Grub to the MBR of your external drive and also set the boot flag on sdb1, how about doing:
Code:
sudo grub
grub> root (hd1,0)
grub> makeactive
grub> setup (hd1)
grub> quit
And then to restore a Windows equivalent MBR to your sda drive so you can boot directly into Windows if you boot the sda drive:
Code:
sudo lilo -M  /dev/sda mbr
Then reboot, set your BIOS to boot the external sdb drive, and you should at least get the Grub menu on start up. If you are using Intrepid, the Ubuntu entries in the Grub menu should work, but if you are using a previous Ubuntu version, most likely the Ubuntu entries will give you a Grub error and require a small fix. How about seeing if you can get this far, or let us know if you run into problems.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 07:55 AM   #6
msrpower
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Thanks CJS, i`m not using Intrepid, i`m using 8.04.1.

I have followed your hints and could get the Grub menu, but as you said, i got this error message :

Error 17: Cannot load the selected partition.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 08:00 AM   #7
CJS
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Quote:
Originally Posted by msrpower View Post
Thanks CJS, i`m not using Intrepid, i`m using 8.04.1.

I have followed your hints and could get the Grub menu, but as you said, i got this error message :

Error 17: Cannot load the selected partition.
OK, go ahead and reboot again, and when you get the Grub menu on start up, select the first Ubuntu entry, press "e" to edit it, select the line that says "root (hd1,0)", press "e" to edit it, change it to "root (hd0,0)", press return to save the change, then press "b" to boot. As long as your Grub's current menu.lst isn't too far off (which I woudn't expect), that should be all it takes to boot Ubuntu. Note that the above change is not permanent, so you'll need to modify your menu.lst to make it permanent.

So if it works, when you get into Ubuntu, just do:
Code:
gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
And change the line that says "#groot=(hd1,0)" to use (hd0,0):
Code:
# groot=(hd1,0)
Save, quit gedit, then run:
Code:
sudo update-grub
And you should be all set. Let me know how it goes or if you run into problems.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 08:19 AM   #8
msrpower
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It works perfectly! thank you very much.
 
Old 12-20-2008, 08:22 AM   #9
CJS
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Glad that worked OK; cheers and have fun with your Ubuntu install.
 
  


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