Re: GRUB hang dual booted system

From: Timothy Murphy (tim_at_birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie)
Date: 08/28/04 

Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:50:08 +0100

David Breakey wrote:

> The problem arises if (when) you ever need to reinstall Windows; Setup
> has a nasty habit of blithely erasing and 'restoring' the Master Boot
> Record to its idea of a legitimate boot loader, completely wiping out
> LILO or Grub in the process. And it does this without the slightest
> warning, indication or option to decline it; you have to dig into the
> log file to even *find* the one-line entry that says something like
> "Found invalid boot record--restoring". Forgive me if I've gotten this
> wrong--it's been a *long* time since I had Windows on my system, except
> in an emulated session.

Don't most people have a boot floppy or CD?
Or if you don't, you can use the Linux distribution CD in rescue mode,
or use Knoppix, or tomsrtbt, and just re-install grub.
 
> This is why, when setting up a Linux/Windows dual-boot environment, it
> is always *recommended* to install LILO or Grub into the partition boot
> record instead (most probably of your /boot partition, but it doesn't
> really matter, so long as it's a primary partition that can be set
> active), therefore allowing Windows to muck around with the MBR to its
> hearts content, and allowing you to restore your preferred bootloader
> just by twiddling the active partition, which is *much* easier than the
> alternative and feasible to do under Windows, even (yes, Windows Setup
> also, "helpfully" corrects the active partition setting).

You may recommend this, but it is certainly not "always recommended",
eg RedHat and Fedora have always recommended installing grub in the MBR,
which is anyway the simplest and safest thing to do. 

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

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