[Solved]Grub multiboot help..

kapz · 2009-07-23 23:27:32

Hi all.

I am new to linux and i am having hard time installing grub. I am booting 5-6 OS'es
But there is a problem configuring one OS.

I have 80 GB SCSI drive. So I have:-
sda1 - 20 GB for Windows C
(sda2-Logical part, 3&4 are cd drives)
sda5 - 25 GB for Windows D
Sda6 - 5 GB Open Suse (just to get used to..)
sda7 - 5 GB fedora 11 --------||---------
sda8 - 500 MB fedora /boot partition
sda 9 - 5 GB Slackware (Beginner)
sda10 - 2 Gb Swap
sda11 - 12 GB ARCH (Love to use it since quite a time now)

Now I have installed suse,slack and fedora on a PC with winxp and arch already installed on it. So MBR was overwritten by opensuse w/o detecting ARCH,Fed as it doesnt detect ext4(yet!) and messed up entries for fed and arch and slack(it didnt detect slacks entry, i think it should..). So I ran Arch live cd and reinstalled grub(through archwiki article). Now the grub reads the menu.lst file from fedora's /boot(sda8) strange!. Everything works fine except that slackware has no entry in grub or lilo(i didnt install lilo either - yes i know i goofed up there)...

Now all I want to know is that there any way to add a slack entry in grub w/o having to boot slack live dvd and install grub for slack then again boot arch live cd(as slack wont detect ext4 partitions) and do grub-install again and again?

Any help/explanation is appreciated guyz.

Last edited by kapz (2009-07-29 15:47:12)

renners1 · 2009-07-24 01:44:51

It doesn't matter which distro's GRUB you use. Choose one, manually update the menu.list to reference all your partions and write it to mbr.

check the arch wiki for good info : http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub

Although most distro's include grub and some even customize it to fit the look and feel of the distro, really you need to think of it as an independant entity!

kapz · 2009-07-24 06:47:25

Hi renners1 .. Yep initially I thought that and started adding grub entries but then while booting it said 'Error 15. unable to find the file. Press any key to escape'. So I had to do grub-install /dev/sda from Archiso, to boot into other system. Hey thanx for the pointer. Will try to add slack entry in grub and post back the output, i hope i say 'yay' in the next post..

Last edited by kapz (2009-07-24 06:48:14)

djszapi · 2009-07-24 20:08:03

it must work, there isn't any difference between slackware or archlinux in the grub

kapz · 2009-07-25 20:32:37

Well all i can say is tht i tried...I reinstalled grub got the Slack kernel to boot, but it stopped in the middle of booting saying Kernel Panic could not mount root filesystem. So I built initrd.gz img and stilll no joy. So I reinstalld whole slack again and installd lilo but still the kernel panicked! Well so no place for slack on the system, removing slack was the only workaround possible(4 now). Will use it on virtual machine and test it.But boy I got some idea about grub and boot stuff...! No site provides articles as gud as archwiki!

kapz · 2009-07-29 15:45:58

Problem solved...

Mayb because this time after booting into live cd and do gub-install, i ran grub and installed grub fom it's 'shell'
and all worked out fine....if someone faces grub stage 1 or stage2 errors then boot into live cd and chroot to arch shell(follow archwiki grub instructions) and simply type gub..
grub>root (hd0,11) <ofcourse you will have to mention your root partition here)
grub>setup (hd0)
(you will receive message saying grub installed successfully)
grub>quit

cheers!

Arch Linux

#1 2009-07-23 23:27:32

[Solved]Grub multiboot help..

#2 2009-07-24 01:44:51

Re: [Solved]Grub multiboot help..

#3 2009-07-24 06:47:25

Re: [Solved]Grub multiboot help..

#4 2009-07-24 20:08:03

Re: [Solved]Grub multiboot help..

#5 2009-07-25 20:32:37

Re: [Solved]Grub multiboot help..

#6 2009-07-29 15:45:58

Re: [Solved]Grub multiboot help..

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