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03-12-2006, 01:21 AM
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#1
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Mar 2006
Posts: 10
Rep:
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Need help installing boot loader
A little backgroung story:
My computer has 2 hard drives, I was using one for the OS(Windows XP) and the other to hold my data an stuff. Well, I come to find out that for some stupid reason, the drive with the data on was my primary master, and the one with the OS was secondary slave(I know, completely back asswards, I think I was just to lazy to switch the drives when I realised that). So, when I installed XP, it installed the boot loader on the data drive, but the OS on the OS drive.
Well, the problem is that now the drive with the data died, and took the MBR with it. The data's backed up, the MBR is not. So now, I can't boot to my hard drive.
I'm trying to get something loaded on there, just so I can boot windows. Lilo or grub, or anything, I don't have a preference. I've got knoppix booted on there now, but all the little guides on the internet don't seem to be working for me. Is there anyone that could help me out in installing a boot loader?
Thanks.
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03-12-2006, 01:29 AM
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#2
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Mar 2006
Posts: 10
Original Poster
Rep:
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OK, I just tried doing a grub-install /dev/hda, and I get a "cannot create directory /boot/grub: read only filesystem.
I ran the command as root
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03-12-2006, 02:16 AM
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#3
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LQ Veteran
Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Australia
Distribution: Lots ...
Posts: 21,335
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Knoppix runs from the CD - which is (of course) R/O.
Bigger issue for you will be the fact that it also mounts all the HD partitions it finds as R/O. Trying to protect you from yourself.
Remount as R/W, and try this (adjust as required);
Code:
grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/mnt/hda? /dev/hda
You'll need a partition (FAT32 might be best) for the grub stage files and config. Another option is to boot the XP CD and do a fixmbr from recovery console.
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03-12-2006, 02:24 AM
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#4
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Member
Registered: Dec 2005
Location: Edmonton
Distribution: BLFS, Gentoo
Posts: 353
Rep:
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I'd suggest the latter !
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03-12-2006, 08:13 AM
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#5
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Member
Registered: May 2005
Distribution: Fedora Core Since version 3
Posts: 193
Rep:
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definitely, xp's bootloader is better for xp
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03-12-2006, 01:51 PM
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#6
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LQ Newbie
Registered: Mar 2006
Posts: 10
Original Poster
Rep:
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I got it working. Thanks.
I wanted to do the fixmbr thing from the beginning. The windows setup wouldn't let me get into recovery console, so that wasn't an option.
So what I did was install windows, but to a temp directory, booted to it, changed the boot.ini so thatit boots from the old installation, and then rebooted, and deleted the new installation.
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