Howdy from Austin, TX

hda has Windows XP, 20Gb partition
hda has RH9, 20Gb worth, defaults partitions accepted at install

sda was my target for Knoppix 3.6 "sudo knoppix-installer"

hda drive geometry was trashed, as far as XP was concerned, got it back eventually.

Here's the question:

If I "grub-install /dev/hda", will XP show up in the grub menu?

Anything I should look out for?

Thanks

Zullo
zullocrit@yahoo.com

grub doesn't use drive names such as hda, hdb, etc. grub uses hd0, hd1, etc, where hd0=hda, hd1=hdb, etc. If you simply tell grub to install the first part to hd0, then it will overwrite the MBR, and windows will not be bootable without a boot disk until you edit /etc/grub.conf (if that's what your distro uses), or edit /boot/grub/menu.lst (if that's what your distro uses) to add windows to the menu.
If you install grub to (hd0,1) or whatever the linux partition is, then all of grub will be installed in the linux partition, and you won't be able to boot linux without a boot disk, or loadlin in the windows partition.
For more info on the ins and outs of grub, google up a copy of 'Zen and the Art of Using Grub'.
For more info on how to setup loadlin in the windows partition, use google to search for the loadlin HOWTO that explains how to do it.

Thanks for your reply.

After I put grub back on hd0 and reboot, the system boots into the grub shell.

The menu.lst and grub.conf conform to the suggested reading.

Thoughts?

Zullo

This is what my /boot/grub/menu.lst has for my windows partition:
title windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

My /etc/grub.conf has this:
root (hd0,2) #where boot is located
install --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /grub/stage1 d (hd0) /grub/stage2 0x8000 (hd0,2) /grub/menu.lst
quit

Copy/paste and edit to suit your system's needs.