[SLE] grub refuses to grub

From: Don W. Jenkins (dwjenkins_at_sc-zg.com)
Date: 11/14/04

  • Next message: Sid Boyce: "Re: [SLE] 9.2 - No xcdroast ?????" 
    Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 22:37:17 -0500
To: Ubuntu Users <ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com>, suse-linux-e@suse.com, kplug-newbie@kernel-panic.org

    I managed to solve a lingering problem I've had with my freezing display
    after narrowing it pretty much to a hardware problem in the mother
    board. I had a new ASUS P4S800 sitting around that I wasn't using, so I
    swapped it in today, so I have that and a Celeron 2.4 gig, 512mb of
    memory, Nvidia FX 5200 video card, Proxim Orinoco wifi card, a 30 gig HD
    for Windows and 60 gig HD for Linux, a regular CDROM and a CDRW. I was
    pleased to find that everything booted, got detected and worked the
    first time, and there appears to be no problem with the display now. It
    was freezing in everything, including Windows, gradually worsening. But
    what I can't do any more is get Grub to boot the machine. No matter
    which distro I try to install and have install Grub, when I try the
    reboot, I get an "error 25" whatever that is, and the boot process just
    stops. For some reason Grub isn't able to pass off to the second HD
    where the actual boot sector is, and I gather, where the actual Grub
    menu is to select Windows. To complicate things, I cannot get Linux to
    rewrite my MBR, because I have Win2000 Server installed, which uses
    NTFS, which does not allow write permission from Linux. And I don't
    recall, or never knew how to rewrite the MBR from fdisk on a Windows
    boot disk. I've even tried to get Win 2000 to reinstall, but it is
    doing funky things at the point where it is supposed to reboot and
    continue the install. It just keeps going around again if the CD is in
    the ROM, and if it is out, Grub is still in the way. It hasn't
    rewritten the MBR yet. If I try the Linux boot floppy, it hangs at the
    point where it would hand off to the boot sector on the second HD, also.

    Does this ring any bells? I'm probably going to have to wipe the
    Windows partition and do a clean install, and maybe the same for the
    Linux side. Or since I have a Win XP laptop, I may just make this a
    Linux machine and forget the dual boot.

    Thanks,
    Don J. 

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  • Next message: Sid Boyce: "Re: [SLE] 9.2 - No xcdroast ?????"

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