Re: Grub Read Error on 1st boot after install

From: Nobody Here (nobby_at_invalid.invalid)
Date: 11/11/05

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    Date: 11 Nov 2005 08:25:00 GMT

    fireball <steve.mclemore@hcahealthcare.com> wrote:
    > Thanks for the reply.
    >
    > The new disk that I hopefully installed Linux on is setup on the 2nd
    > IDE Channel as Master. Slave on 1st IDE Channel is my CD.
    >
    > At this point I'm not sure whether or not I overwrote my Windows
    > install. I'm in no rush, so I'm willing to wait until I'm sure you or
    > someone fully understands what I've done, or assists me in determining
    > what I've done so that I can salvidge my Windows install.
    >
    > When I turn the pc on, all I get is the Grub Read Error message right
    > at the beginning. After doing some reading I did boot off of the
    > Fedora Core 2, 1st Install CD and typed "linux rescue". It did some
    > churning and chuncking and came back with some info. I don't remember
    > what it was. I didn't go any further because I was unsure how to
    > proceed. I will try that again tonight and copy the info. this time.

    OK. What's probably wrong is that your grub config is wrong. Grub
    has a small boot program in the Master Boot Record, and that then loads
    1 or 2 extra programs from your hard disk in the /boot/grub directory
    of our installation. Because the intial boot program is small and very
    stupid, it has the head/cylinder/sector location of the programs hard
    coded into it (by the progam that installs it in the MBR). If grub was
    confused, it will have put the wrong info in there.

    Ah, also your computer sounded quite old, if it was a few hundred MHz
    processor. It might be that the program is located more than 8gb
    into the disk and is unreachable by the BIOS? Normally on older
    machines we'd create a special partition for just /boot at the
    start of the disk so that the BIOS could see it. Grub uses to
    BIOS to locate and load the main boot program, as I understand it.

    > So that you understand my original config. let me repeat what it was.
    > My original hard drive had physical partition "C:" and logical
    > partitions "E: and F:". Windows 98SE was installed on the "C:"
    > partition. I installed the new 20gb hd and told the install routine to
    > use it for the complete Linux install.
    >
    > I can try the Linux "fdisk". Since my Linux install drive is Primary
    > on the 2nd IDE Channel, would I type "fdisk /dev/hdb"? I understand
    > that to exit "fdisk" I should type "q" and not "w". Will this only
    > give me info. on my Linux partitions?

    The disks as described above will be Windows on hda, your CD on hdb,
    your second disk on hdc, so you want "fdisk /dev/hdc" You can then use
    "p" to examine the partitions on that disk, which might give you some
    useful information. "m" gives you help inside the program.

    > I can also boot from my floppy based Win98 Startup Disk and run "fdisk"
    > to see if my original partitions are still there, right? Then if I
    > decide that I don't mind reinstalling Linux, I can run "fdisk /mbr" and
    > probably resurrect my Windows 98, right? I'm sorry I don't understand
    > (RTFM!!).

    Read the Flipping Manual, although the third word can be anything
    appropriate starting with "F" :-)

    I just meant that yu should be sure that fdisk /mbr is the correct command
    before you use it - don't just take my word for it, I'm not partcularly
    familiar with windoes and have never used W98.

    Also, if it will give you the "Boot off CD or Disk?" option I mentioned
    earlier it will tell you if your original Windows is still there. As
    I said, I don't know if the W98 CD does that, but the XP CD does.

    > Concerning your last paragraph, I know that I have read about
    > "chrooting" and mounting a drive and fixing the grub configuration, but
    > at this point in my Linux training it's kinda like Greek to me, because
    > I haven't experimented with it yet.

    Yeah, that's why I just mentioned the words so it gave you some reading
    pointers. It's a bit hard to tell you exactly what you need to do because
    that depends on exactly what the problem was. The biggest hurdle is to
    find out which of the myriad of greek commands you need to take notice
    of :-)

    > By the way, I also have a Knoppix CD. Would that work better for just
    > poking around until I know what to do with this mess that I have
    > created?

    Probably not, but I've never used Knoppix, always RedHat and Fedora

    > I used to be fairly comfortable working in the DOS environment, so I
    > think that I can get comfortable with Linux. It will just take some
    > practice.

    It's a steep learning curve - I had the advantage that when I started
    with Linux nearly with RedHat 5 I'd used Unix in the early '80s for
    quite some time, so most of the basic commands and the like were familiar
    to me. However, once you get used to it, it's far easier than windows
    to administeri, troubleshoot and maintain.
      

    -- 
Nobby
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