[ale] Q: Untrash GRUB boot on RH-7.2 box

[John Mills]

ALErs -

I am trying to set up dual booting linux-2.4.x and TimeSys's low-latency
GPL Linux x86 kernel, and I've trashed my system's boot. First, I fiddled
with '/etc/grub.conf' and '/etc/fstab' and got into trouble. Now I'm
trying to repair it with RH-7.2 CD1 and have not gotten quite home yet.

1) If I allow the boot sector to run, I just get a text screen with 'GRUB'
in the top left corner.

2) If I boot 'linux rescue' from the CD, then change to a virtual console,
I can mount my HDD partitions on [say] '/mnt/root' and '/mnt/boot' (they
look OK), and with some path-pfutzing I can edit system files: I put
'grub.conf' and 'fstab' back as they should be.

3) I have tried soft-linking /mnt/root/[usr etc sbin] and /mnt/boot to '/'
(renaming the ramdisk equivalents), but when I try to run 'grub-install' I
get complaints about an unsuitable shell. (I assumed that rerunning
'grub-install' would repair the MBR, but I don't know if that's really
what I need to do.)

I made a pair of boot diskettes (vmlinuz and the timesys kernels) by my
old, standard 'dd if=<kernel_image> of=/dev/fd0H1440' but this does not
seem to work with my setup. 'info grub' suggests a different procedure,
first making an ext* fs on the diskette, which I guess I should have done.

I do have another box set up with RH-7.3, so I suppose I could make a boot
diskette there and use it to bring up my cripple.

It would be nice not to blow away the current installation, but actually
there is very little on the box that I couldn't reconstruct pretty
quickly.

Advice appreciated on digging out of this hole.

TIA -
 - John Mills


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