Arch Linux

Wubbeneezer

Member

From: Northern California

Registered: 2005-03-12

Posts: 13

GRUB-install weirdness

When I installed Arch I decided not to install its GRUB in the MBR, leaving that to Mepis, which I have on another partition. Now I've decided to get rid of Mepis; before doing that, I want to install Arch's GRUB in the MBR.

I followed the directions in my Knoppix book for reinstalling GRUB in the MBR. Using a Knoppix disk I mounted my Arch partition (hda6) and tried to run grub-install:

 

root@1[root]# mount -o dev,rw /mnt/hda6
  root@1[root]# chroot /mnt/hda6 grub-install /dev/hda
  /dev/hda: Not found or not a block device.

Then on a whim I tried reinstalling Mepis' GRUB (Mepis is hdb1) in the MBR:
 
 

root@1[root]# mount -o dev,rw /mnt/hdb1
  root@1[root]# chroot /mnt/hdb1 grub-install /dev/hda
  Installation finished. No error reported.
  This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
  Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
  fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

  (hd0)   /dev/hda
  (hd1)   /dev/hdb
  (hd2)   /dev/sda

Why this discrepancy--why the /dev/hda error in the first case but not the second? Is this a GRUB bug or am I missing something? I also tried this with the Mepis CD, with the same results. Thanks.

---

When all is said and done,
There's nothing left to say or do.

shadowhunter

Member

Registered: 2003-10-08

Posts: 26

Re: GRUB-install weirdness

Make sure you have your /dev and /proc mounted on the target partition.

Geert.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: GRUB-install weirdness

You can mount dev and proc into the other partition with

mount --bind /dev/ /mnt/hdXX/dev
mount --bind /proc/ /mnt/hdXX/proc

replacing XX with the partition.

iphitus

Wubbeneezer

Member

From: Northern California

Registered: 2005-03-12

Posts: 13

Re: GRUB-install weirdness

I tried mount --bind dev/proc but it did not solve the problem. I got an error message stating that /dev/hda was not a valid BIOS drive. When I Googled the error message I found a post on the Mandriva forums from a person with the same problem, who found that it was caused by the lack of (hdx) info in /boot/grub/device.map.

Sure enough, I looked in my Arch device.map and found no hd info. I was wondering if this had something to do with udev--I'm still not very udev-savvy. Other distros I have installed that don't use udev (like the Mepis I partition) had device.map listings with hd mapping. Anyway, I added (hd0) /dev/hda to Arch's device.map and GRUB installed in the MBR like I wanted. Just wondering, though, will this mess with udev?

---

When all is said and done,
There's nothing left to say or do.