How to run 126 Xp in a hard disk - with a bit of help from Linux

[janb]

saikee, you make booting really sound "laughingly simple"--in fact, i laughed long and hard when i read that.

but as always "the devil is in the details". so here are 3 small "detail" questions:

1.you write: "When you install a Linux it always (99% of the cases) allows the boot loader to be placed in the MBR or inside it root partition." what's the other 1% ?

2.related to the above, you write: "If you let the installer write the boot loader on the MBR you can always change it, using any Linux, any Grub prompt or any Grub shell." can you write the code to do this with a grub prompt?

3.going back to my previous post about not being able to write the "empty" menu.lst to the /boot/grub directory in the fat16 data only partition--do you think it would work if i just wrote a file named "menu.lst" with all the necessary info and then just use the copy command to write it to /boot/grub directory?

again, many thanks.

janb

[saikee]

(1) There are a few distros that insist on taking over the entire disk for installation and they also want to take over the MBR too. These are odd distros not in the mainstream of Linux.

It is quite worrying for an installer if a user opts to put the boot loader inside the root partition because the Linux will not self-boot and have to rely on another boot loader.

(2) Method 1: In any Linux with Grub inside and say the first boot disk is sda. This command put its Grub in the MBR of sda is

grub-install /dev/sda

Method 2: In any Grub prompt before or after a Linux has been booted, if you want the Grub say in 5th partition of the 3rd disk (known to Grub as (hd2,4)) to control the MBR you issue these commands

root (hd2,4)
setup (hd0)

The difference between (1) and (2) is in the former you are already inside that partition so Grub needs no guidance of where is the root. In the latter case you have a complete freedom to select any Linux in any partition off any hard disk to control the MBR of the 1st disk (hd0).

If you want Grub to place itself inside its own partition, say it is (hd2,4) the commands are

root (hd2,4)
setup (hd2,4)

If you want to keep a copy of Grub that can boot up Linux in (hd2,4) you do

root (hd2,4)
setup (fd0)

Isn't that laughingly simple? and you can do all three too to make your booting bomb proof!

(3) I think you should follow and understand the correct instructions of creating a menu.lst.

Say you have created a partition sda7 and have specified it Type 6 for the Fat16 filing system. Fat16 cannot address beyond 2Gb so sda7 must be no bigger than 2Gb ( I got a feeling you might have a Fat16 bigger than 2Gb if you can't write on it). Assuming you have this done. You then format it with the "mkdosfs" command with -F16 parameter, create a mounting point, mount the partition and use an editor to create the menu.lst.

mkdosfs -F16 /dev/sda7
mkdir /mnt/sda7
mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/sda7
mkdir /mnt/sda7/boot
mkdir /mnt/sda7/boot/grub
gedit /mnt/sda7/boot/grub/menu.lst

In a KDE desktop you use kwrite instead of gedit.

[janb]

i'm almost there!

i was at last able to generate the menu.lst file in the directory /mnt/sda3/boot/grub.

sda was previously partitioned as follows: 4 primary partitions, sda1 and sda2 both 50gb and ext3, sda3--1gb, fat16, sda4--extended, sda5--1gb, swap, and sda6, sda7, sda8, sda9, sda10 all 50gb and ext3.

i then installed the first linux os--sabayon4.1_amd64--into sda1 using manual partition to set the mount point to / and to let the sabayon installer again format sda1 as ext3 . it installed without a hitch.

before re-booting i opened a terminal and used the sudo command to edit /mnt/sda3/boot/grub/menu.lst all i did was changed "empty@sda1" to "sabayon4.1@sda1", saved it, and exited the terminal. i purposely used small letter "s" rather than the capital "S", so that i could know whether the menu.lst i had modified had taken control of the boot process.

when i re-booted i expected to see "sabayon4.1@sda1" as the choice to boot if the fat16 menu.lst had taken control. instead the sabayon installer made its normal display.

all i can think of is that during the install the sabayon installer changed the mbr. so is it just a matter of changing the mbr as you showed in your last post? did it over-ride putting grub in / (ie.root)?

your thoughts please.

[saikee]

You must be sleeping while installing Sabayon. If you want to direct the boot loader into the root partition you must watch the installer like a hawk.

Now to cure it - when you are inside Sabayon, click terminal, type "su" to get root privilege and put it right by Grub

grub
root (hd0,0)
setup (hd0,0)
root (hd0,2)
setup (hd0)
quit

If you have stage1, stage2 and menu.lst inside /boot/grub of sda3 then your sda3 will boot as you want it.

[janb]

saikee-- that did it! thank you.--janb