Lost grub wen reformating and installin windows xp

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Lost grub wen reformating and installin windows xp
started by: kangaroo killa

Posted by kangaroo killa on July 21 2005,10:46

Lost grub so now i cant dual boot between linux and xp. can i install DSL over ubuntu? and that will bring back grub?

Posted by v00d00 on July 21 2005,11:09

Have to say your royally screwed. Ive done this before a few times when i was a real noob. Each time required a reinstall (or about 3 hours of playing with grub while chroot'd from a rescue cd.

Nowadays i dont need to fix it as prevention is better than cure.
Learn how to backup the mbr (master boot record), then u can always boot from the xp boot loader if needs be.

Whether you will be able to re-access your data after installing dsl, then yeh most likely, you can edit lilo's conf file and add in your other linux's partition and then boot to it from lilo.

Posted by tech10171968 on July 24 2005,05:50

The problem with installing Windows after installing a linux distro is that Windows tends to overwrite the MBR, so your bootloader is now different and will load Windows only.

Thanks for nothing, Bill.

Next time try installing Windows first, then installing Linux afterwards. Linux will put it's bootloader in the MBR (LILO or GRUB), and all will end well.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on July 24 2005,06:57

hush, hush!

All you need is a grub floppy, and a little patience.

Get a grub floppy image < here >

make the floppy with the following command.

cat grubbootdisk.cat > /dev/fd0

reboot with the floppy in the drive.

when you get the grub type the following commands, minus the comments

Remember, grub sees partitions differently than linux. The first number is the physical disk, starting from 0. The second number is the partition number, starting from 0. So, hda2 is (hd0,1) in grubspeak, and hdc4 is (hd2,3). I will continue as if /boot/grub is on hda2/

root (hd0,1)
setup (hd0)

Easy as that!

Your grub menu should be back just the way it was. If something doesn't work, you can always edit menu.lst to fix it.

Enjoy.

-J.P.