1.b - Installing GRUB (or removing L99 99 99 .. )

Updated 05/18/2005 - moved to section 1

So, you got yet another perfect install of L99 99 99 99 .., eh?

Well I can hook you up.

The first thing you need is a way to boot your toasted HD install, so grab the GRUB floppy image from my FTP.

luna.vectori.net/~anorion/dsl

If you don't have a floppy drive, you can grab the grub.iso.

Yes it's only about 500k.

Yes you have to close the CD. Multisession wont work right.

Yes, it wastes the rest of the CD.

No, I dont feel sorry for you.

Aaanyways, make the floppy with the following command.

cat grubbootdisk.cat >/dev/fd0

No, you can't use dd. It doesn't work.

No, I won't make a version that will work with dd, this one works fine.

Or for the iso, you can use cdrecord, just like for any other iso.

So, not that you have your boot media, you need to boot the dead computer with the grub disk in it, and tell grub how to boot it.

Thankfully, GRUB is very simple to do this with. for example, if your DSL hd-install is on hda1, here is what you need to enter.

title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
makeactive
boot

or, for frugal,

title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
makeactive
boot

or for poorman's,

title DSL
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/isolinux/linux24 root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/isolinux/minirt24.gz
savedefault

Notice that GRUB does not number disks and partitions like Linux does. Linux starts counting from 1. Grub counts from 0.

So, the first disk is hd0. Then you have hd1, hd2 and so forth.

The same with partitions. The first partition is numbered "0", then 1 for the second, and so on.

The DSL kernel is at /boot/linux24, so dont change that.

For the "root=" entry, put the Linux device path there, like I did. /dev/hda1 or whatever.

After you get your DSL install up, grab the grub.dsl from my ftp and mydsl-load it.

Run the following command.

grub-install /dev/hda

No, I don't mean hda1, or whatever partition.

Yes, we are installing GRUB to the mbr.

No, this won't kill your windows. We'll get to that in a minute.

The last step is to set up the menu.list for grub, unless you like typing in the commands to boot a partition manually. I know I do. ^_^

The extension puts an empty menu.lst in /boot/grub, so you have to set it up manually. But I put decent instructions in comments in it, so it shouldnt be too hard.

Just remember to do chainloader +1 for windows booting.

Something like this, if windows is at hda2.

title Windows
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot