Hi,

I'm attempting to get a dual boot system (Win2k/Linux) to run from two raid channels. The only way I'm aware to update grub is during this install process. But the boot partition will only upgrade if there have been kernel changes (I'd like to understand this limitation better).

So I've now run out of kernel (big, pcmcia, uml) types to update.

My question(s): is there a simpler way to do this, and how do I uninstall these unnecessary (for me) kernel appendages?

Thanks!!

BB

Take a look at this:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...nstalling.html

you can use grub-install from the bash prompt to install GRUB on the MBR.

grub-install /dev/sda will install GRUB on the MBR of /dev/sda but will call it hd0.

From the bash prompt, you can

info grub

for more information about grub.

Is there a grub on a floppy? The Windows partition, which needs to be active during boot, won't let me boot anything but windows. So I need to boot linux w/grub from a floppy or cd and then do the grubbin.

Use RH CD1 to boot into linux rescue mode. Type:
linux rescue

at the "boot: " prompt.

You can try this

Boot into linux . Make a GRUB boot floppy
with the following commands

cd /usr/share/grub/i386-pc
dd if=stage1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1
dd if=stage2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 seek=1

You can get more information about GRUB by typing

info grub

at the bash prompt.

David, on a raid system you need to specify not just 'linux rescue' but 'linux text expert rescue hdh=noprobe hdg=noprobe hdf=noprobe' (you might be able to omit 'text'). The noprobe stops Windows from getting in the way and the expert allows me to load the htp370 raid driver.

Unfortunately the boot linux does not contain grub-install, but, to ppuru's suggestion, the rescue does mount my previous install under /mnt/sysimage. I've tried to ln from the /mnt/sysimage into the temporary rescue filesystem but I'm getting read-only errors.

So, from this, I'm going to pull the Windows disks, boot into Linux, and give PPuru's suggestions a whirl.

I'll post my progress (for others in the future that might suffer from the desire to create such a geeky configuration.)

you will need to

chroot /mnt/sysimage

to get your existing linux work under the rescue mode.

From this point on, whatever you do, will effect/affect your linux system.

Oh boy, fun with technology. I created the grub disk, booted with it and read-up on root and setup. It happens that my Windows partition is hd0,0 and is the only partition on that drive. So when I tried to setup (hd0,0) grub said it couldn't write to that partition. So I am assuming that it's cause it's an ntfs partition.

So... I'm resizing the ntfs partition up and freeing up a small boot portion at the beginning of the drive and formatting it for ext3 (linux).

Once that's complete (it's a 80gig hd), I expect that I'll be able to boot from the grub floppy, and do the root & set to install grub stage1 onto that newly created partition.

Does this sound viable?

Thanks,

BB

Hi PPuru, David,

This is driving me crazy. I now have a /boot partition at the beginning of each drive array. But the default boot is still into Windows, not grub.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

BB

Please attach the output of fdisk -l and mount, also the contents of grub.conf (/boot/grub/grub.conf)

You will need to do a grub-install to install grub on the MasterBootRecord of your MasterDrive. Only after we get this done, can GRUB take control.

Surprising why GRUB fails to recognize your NTFS partition.
(Not to be included in this discussion, I had faced a problem
where floppy-based GRUB won't recognize a linux-only hdb or hdd)

Hi PPuru, I really appreciate your help.. I'm being pulled off on a small temporary project and will be somewhat delayed - a day or two. I'll post the fdisk -l and grub.conf contents as soon as switch context back to my dual boot problem.

Thanks again!!

BB