hii ..
i was experimenting making a disk with a boot loader ...
i executed this command on my konsole

grub-install /dev/fd0

which shud mean tht i m trying to install grub on my floppy .. but it was taking time .. and i did ctrl+C break ...
and the next time i booted ... the screen was showing nothing .. but just grub grub grub ... written a million times ..

wot did this command do ? if i execute this command will it shift grunb from MBR to floppy .. or it will make a fresh copy there .. and also will it take the configuration file with itself .. to detect my dual boot

MY REAL QUEST :
i have win xp and FC3 dual boot ... i wish to reinstall winxp with SP2 .. and also my present winxp has lots of virus .. so i wanna make a fresh reinstalltion .. but windows will eat up my MBR ...
will the command above help me in any way
grub-install /dev/fd0
if i do this ... will it allow me to boot into my linux partition through floppy ?
and then after makin reinstalltion n then again booting to linux if i type this ..
grub-install /dev/hda
will everything be allright

if u know any solid alternate then tell me ...
i read somewhere abt dd option too using something like

dd if=/dev/hda of=backup bbs= something something ..
i dont remember

kindly guide me in this regard ... and specially i m interested in wot does tht command do ... the one with
grub-install /dev/fd0
thnks in advance

You can just use the FC3 rescue cd to execute grub-install /dev/hda after you have re-installed windows xp....

Boot into rescue cd, follow prompts, mount existing linux partition then run command. Works for me

The command installs grub on your floppy. Since you interrupted the process, I don't know what it did.
Is it possible that the floppy was still in the drive when you re-booted? If so, then it was attempting to run the partial installation.

In any event, putting grub on the floppy would not disturb your existing setup.

hii ...
accumulating some courage ... i did execute the same command ..
grub-install /dev/fd0
now wot happened was ... when i tried to boot from hard disk .... again same grub grub grub ... million times
but it worked with floppy ... when i changed from bios my 1st boot device as floppy
grub loaded n my installtion was working fine

are u sure .. tht it install separate copy of grub on floppy ? u know ... i did my windows reinstalltion .. n then i typed this (by using the grub on floppy i went to linux )
grub-install /dev/hda
and now when i try to boot from floppy it shows GRUB GRUB full of screeen ... and when i boot from hard disk .. it works fine ... which certainly means .. tht it doesnt make a separate copy ...?
my problem is solved ... but doubt still remain !!
"does it install a separate copy or not "
and yehh wot i noticed was .. when i executed
grub-install /dev/hda
my floppy drive became active ... which means something was transferred from it ...
i mean the second time .. when i was restoring grub to MBR

Have you tried setting it up so GRUB is working fine on the floppy, then issued 'grub-install /dev/hda' with the floppy out of the drive? If that causes the floppy not to work, there's something going on behind the scenes, that causes the floppy's version to be somehow out-of-sync with a valid bootloader. AFAIK, grub-install shouldn't invalidate pre-existing instances of GRUB; it seems like it's somehow changing something important on the filesystem itself (e.g. the kernel image filename) such that only the most recently created version is accurate.

OTOH, googling (for "grub grub grub grub" ) seems to imply that your BIOS disk autodetect settings may be the cause of this. Presumably, then, grub-install communicates something to the BIOS that changes its expectations of the device to be booted from. In any event, you can change this by adjusting your settings as documented here.