Arch Linux

takedown

Member

From: Argentina

Registered: 2008-08-31

Posts: 219

questions about partitions and grub

Hi, first of all make clear that writing this post will be somewhat complicated because of my poor english at time of writing.

My query is as follows:
My computer has two hard disks.
One SATA (160Gb) with an installation of Windows and Arch.
One IDE (80Gb) that use to store my music.

bash-3.2# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3d1e3d1e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2480    19920568+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            2481       19457   136367752+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            2481        9007    52428096    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6           11619       19457    62966736   83  Linux
/dev/sda7            9008        9138     1052226   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8            9139       11618    19920568+  83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0005cd2c

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        9733    78180291    7  HPFS/NTFS

As seen above, both sda1, as sdb1 are booteables.
No reason was because the startup windows files are both in sdb1, as in sda1, but I think (only think) those are used for boot of sdb1.
If I unplug sdb (mi IDE harddisk) Grub fail at boot, and I don't like it at all, since they only use it as a comment to store only music.

/mnt/ide_ntfs is the mount point of sdb1 (IDE) and:

bash-3.2# ls /mnt/ide_ntfs
music
MSOCache
RECYCLER
System Volume Information
AUTOEXE.BAT
boot.ini
Bootfont.bin
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr

and /mnt/win_c is the mount point of sda1:

bash-3.2# ls /mnt/win_c
Archivos de programa
Dev-Cpp
Documents and Settings
RECYCLER
System Volume Information
WINDOWS
msx88
AUTOEXEC.BAT
boot.ini
Bootfont.bin
Config.Msi
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
pagefile.sys

I wish that grub is directly in the mbr of sda (and delete of mbr sdb, if it were), and that the startup windows files are only on sda1. Any suggestions on how to clean up this problem?

The last detail, my /boot/grub/menu.lst

bash-3.2# more /boot/grub/menu.lst
default 0
timeout 5
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

title Arch Linux
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/bc596fe7-8577-4019-bc02-bad29a70d639 ro vga=795
acpi_osi=Linux
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/bc596fe7-8577-4019-bc02-bad29a70d639 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

title WindowsXP SP3
root (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
savedefault
makeactive

I hope you understand me

thanks a lot

fukawi2

Ex-Administratorino

From: .vic.au

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 6,231

Website

Re: questions about partitions and grub

This might be what you're after:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Reinstalling_GRUB

Boot to Arch, then install grub to /dev/sda

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takedown

Member

From: Argentina

Registered: 2008-08-31

Posts: 219

Re: questions about partitions and grub

I rename all ini files from sdb1 like this:
AUTOEXE.BAT.BACK
boot.ini.BACK
Bootfont.bin.BACK
CONFIG.SYS.BACK
IO.SYS.BACK
MSDOS.SYS.BACK
NTDETECT.COM.BACK
ntldr.BACK

and windows start normally... so I can delete it.

I resolve missing if grub installed on sda or sdb.
If this in the mbr of sda, leave it as it is.
If this in the mbr of sdb, delete it from there, and install it on the mbr of sda.