GRUB question

[Bit Twister]

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 01:53:28 GMT, Ko Fei Pu wrote:

> Greetins all:
> I have a dual boot machine with W2K & RH 9, W2K is in my MBR, so when I
> boot the computer W2K boots first, during the Linux install, I made a
> mistake and installed GRUB, now every time I tried to go to Linux, the
> GRUB booter comes up, is there anyway that I can remove GRUB withou
> damaging my install?

If you remove grub, how do you plan to boot linux.

> If not how can I change the GRUB default entry
> (right now is pointing to W2K)?

man grub
modify /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst depending on version.

Here is an example to change default linux to windows.

change default 0
to default x

where x is the number of "title"s - 1 for the system you want as default.

Example:
title linux
title failsafe
title windows
title floppy

If windows is the the third title, set default 2

Next boot should boot windows.

[Ko Fei Pu]

Bit Twister wrote:

> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 01:53:28 GMT, Ko Fei Pu wrote:
>

>>Greetins all:
>>I have a dual boot machine with W2K & RH 9, W2K is in my MBR, so when I
>>boot the computer W2K boots first, during the Linux install, I made a
>>mistake and installed GRUB, now every time I tried to go to Linux, the
>>GRUB booter comes up, is there anyway that I can remove GRUB withou
>>damaging my install?

>
>
> If you remove grub, how do you plan to boot linux.

The file I copied from Linux to W2K won't boot? If you don't install
GRUB, you can only boot from diskette and not from W2K?

Thanks

>
>

>>If not how can I change the GRUB default entry
>>(right now is pointing to W2K)?

>
>
>
> man grub
> modify /boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst depending on version.
>
> Here is an example to change default linux to windows.
>
> change default 0
> to default x
>
> where x is the number of "title"s - 1 for the system you want as default.
>
> Example:
> title linux
> title failsafe
> title windows
> title floppy
>
> If windows is the the third title, set default 2
>
> Next boot should boot windows.

--

Thanks,
-------------------------------------------------
Ko Fei Pu
mailto:kfpu@yahoo.com

[Bit Twister]

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 02:03:56 GMT, Ko Fei Pu wrote:

> The file I copied from Linux to W2K won't boot? If you don't install
> GRUB, you can only boot from diskette and not from W2K?

You will have to use
[url]http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search[/url]
to see how to boot linux from Windows, unless someone jumps in here
whith the steps. I do not do windows.

I always install linux boot loader into the mbr.

[Mark]

Ko Fei Pu wrote:

> Greetins all:
> I have a dual boot machine with W2K & RH 9, W2K is in my MBR, so when I
> boot the computer W2K boots first, during the Linux install, I made a
> mistake and installed GRUB, now every time I tried to go to Linux, the
> GRUB booter comes up, is there anyway that I can remove GRUB withou
> damaging my install? If not how can I change the GRUB default entry
> (right now is pointing to W2K)?
>
> I'm a newbie so please bear with me, any comment or suggestion is much
> appreciated.

In order to dual-boot both Windows and Linux, GRUB needs to be in your MBR.
It acts as the boot loader for both operating systems and is
OS-independent. If you triple-boot 2 Windows Os's and Linux, then GRUB will
load the Windows Boot Loader if you select the Windows option, then you can
choose the Windows OS. If you want to remove GRUB from the MBR (and I don't
know why you would if you really want Windows & Linux,) then you'll have to
boot with the Win 2k install disk and use the repair utility to repair the
MBR.

The other replies about the Windows section in grub.conf and selecting the
default OS are what work for me.

Mark

[Craig McCluskey]

Douglas Mayne wrote:

> Caveat: I am not running Windows XP.
>
> I would at least try this stanza in grub (the command can also be entered
> at the grub shell at startup):
>
> Title Windows XP
> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
> makeactive
> chainloader +1
>
> Provide proper values for (hdx,y) if (hd0,0) is not correct.
>
> If this works (and it should), then grub can be the loader for all of
> your OS's

I do have a dual boot with XP. The appropriate entry in my
/boot/grub/grub.conf is:

title XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


Craig

[Jules Dubois]

[followups set to comp.os.linux.setup]

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 01:53:28 GMT, Ko Fei Pu wrote:

> I have a dual boot machine with W2K & RH 9, W2K is in my MBR, so when I
> boot the computer W2K boots first, during the Linux install, I made a
> mistake and installed GRUB,

I did the same thing a few months ago. I didn't like it for the first few
minutes, but now I'm glad I did.

(I used to boot kernel 2.0.33 from the WinNT boot menu, a serious pain in
the ... .)

> now every time I tried to go to Linux, the
> GRUB booter comes up, is there anyway that I can remove GRUB withou
> damaging my install?

What do you mean by "[try] to go to Linux?" Is GRUB installed in the MBR?

"/sbin/lilo" will write a LILO bootstrap to the MBR, if you configure it to
do so. MS Windows' "fdisk /mbr" will write a Windows bootstrap to the MBR.
I wouldn't do either, myself.

> If not how can I change the GRUB default entry
> (right now is pointing to W2K)?

default 0 # replace '0' with the "number" of your desired boot entry

> I'm a newbie so please bear with me, any comment or suggestion is much
> appreciated.

It's trivial to boot W2K from GRUB. Is that what you want to do?

The best suggestions are

man grub
info grub

[Jules Dubois]

[followups set to comp.os.linux.setup]

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 02:56:27 GMT, Douglas Mayne wrote:

> I would at least try this stanza in grub (the command can also be entered
> at the grub shell at startup):
>
> Title Windows XP
> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
> makeactive
> chainloader +1
>
> Provide proper values for (hdx,y) if (hd0,0) is not correct.

It works for Windows 2000. I don't think Windows 2000 honors the "active
flag"; I use "makeactive" anyway. I've had perfect success with those four
lines.

[Ko Fei Pu]

Jules Dubois wrote:

> [followups set to comp.os.linux.setup]
>
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 02:56:27 GMT, Douglas Mayne wrote:
>
>

>>I would at least try this stanza in grub (the command can also be entered
>>at the grub shell at startup):
>>
>>Title Windows XP
>> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>> makeactive
>> chainloader +1
>>
>>Provide proper values for (hdx,y) if (hd0,0) is not correct.

>
>
> It works for Windows 2000. I don't think Windows 2000 honors the "active
> flag"; I use "makeactive" anyway. I've had perfect success with those four
> lines.

I mad the same changes, but I still got the W2K boot loader, am I
missing something?

Thanks

[Ko Fei Pu]

Jules Dubois wrote:

> [followups set to comp.os.linux.setup]
>
> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 01:53:28 GMT, Ko Fei Pu wrote:
>
>

>>I have a dual boot machine with W2K & RH 9, W2K is in my MBR, so when I
>>boot the computer W2K boots first, during the Linux install, I made a
>>mistake and installed GRUB,

>
>
> I did the same thing a few months ago. I didn't like it for the first few
> minutes, but now I'm glad I did.
>
> (I used to boot kernel 2.0.33 from the WinNT boot menu, a serious pain in
> the ... .)
>
>

>>now every time I tried to go to Linux, the
>>GRUB booter comes up, is there anyway that I can remove GRUB withou
>>damaging my install?

>
>
> What do you mean by "[try] to go to Linux?" Is GRUB installed in the MBR?
>
> "/sbin/lilo" will write a LILO bootstrap to the MBR, if you configure it to
> do so. MS Windows' "fdisk /mbr" will write a Windows bootstrap to the MBR.
> I wouldn't do either, myself.
>
>

>>If not how can I change the GRUB default entry
>>(right now is pointing to W2K)?

>
>
> default 0 # replace '0' with the "number" of your desired boot entry
>
>

>>I'm a newbie so please bear with me, any comment or suggestion is much
>>appreciated.

>
>
> It's trivial to boot W2K from GRUB. Is that what you want to do?
>
> The best suggestions are
>
> man grub
> info grub

Based on the posting, it seems better to have GRUB installed in MBR and
boot w2k or linux from it, right now I have w2k installed in MBR and
GRUB installed on /boot directory, so when I want to boot linux, I have
to select linux from w2k boot loader, then select linux again from GRUB
boot loader, and I would like to remove the GRUB loader if it's possible
and won't damage my current installation.

TIA

[Douglas Mayne]

On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 23:32:39 -0600, Ko Fei Pu wrote:

> Jules Dubois wrote:

>> [followups set to comp.os.linux.setup]
>>
>> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 02:56:27 GMT, Douglas Mayne wrote:
>>
>>

>>>I would at least try this stanza in grub (the command can also be
>>>entered at the grub shell at startup):
>>>
>>>Title Windows XP
>>> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>>> makeactive
>>> chainloader +1
>>>
>>>Provide proper values for (hdx,y) if (hd0,0) is not correct.

>>
>>
>> It works for Windows 2000. I don't think Windows 2000 honors the
>> "active flag"; I use "makeactive" anyway. I've had perfect success
>> with those four lines.

>
> I mad the same changes, but I still got the W2K boot loader, am I
> missing something?
>
> Thanks
>

Using grub as the loader causes the slight inconvience of going through
two boot menus: the grub menu followed by the windows boot menu. The
point is it works. How much time are you going to be spending
rebooting anyway ? -- insert windows joke here. ;-)

--Douglas Mayne

[Craig McCluskey]

Ko Fei Pu wrote:

>>> Title Windows XP
>>> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>>> makeactive
>>> chainloader +1

>
>
> I mad the same changes, but I still got the W2K boot loader, am I
> missing something?

Apparently so. Look at

[url]http://groups.google.com/groups?q=grub+Redhat+7.3+group:comp.os.linux.setup &hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=5a3928c0.0209121855.758dd68%40posting.googl e.com&rnum=4[/url]

and follow the directions.


Craig

[Jules Dubois]

On Thu, 04 Sep 2003 05:39:27 GMT, in article <jeA5b.649$kW.235@edtnps84>,
Ko Fei Pu wrote:

>> The best suggestions are
>>
>> man grub
>> info grub
>>

> Based on the posting, it seems better to have GRUB installed in MBR and
> boot w2k or linux from it,

That's what I do, but what's better is what works better for you.

> right now I have w2k installed in MBR and
> GRUB installed on /boot directory,

I think you should reread the GRUB documentation. You have "GRUB files" in
your /boot directory, but

* the GRUB stage-1 boot loader is in the first sector (not a file) of
some partition; and
* if you're loading GRUB from W2K, there's a copy of that sector in
another file somewhere, and W2K's BOOT.INI specifies its location.

> so when I want to boot linux, I have
> to select linux from w2k boot loader,

To boot W2K, if you have GRUB in the MBR, you'll have to go through the W2K
boot menu. Unless you specify something like "timeout=0" in one or both
bootloaders, you'll have to navigate menus.

> I would like to remove the GRUB loader if it's possible
> and won't damage my current installation.

I'm only familiar with one way to boot Linux -- with a bootloader like LILO
or GRUB. There may be other ways, but LILO and GRUB have always worked for
me.