Re: Can't boot my computer anymore!

[Yedidyah Bar-David]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2003 at 06:51:56PM -0500, Andrew wrote:
> 
>    Hello,
> 
> 
> 
>    I have a dual boot system with Win98SE and RH9. I have had Grub as the
>    boot loader for a long time now and have no problems.
> 
> 
> 
>    Now  all  of  the sudden my computer boots up and right after the POST
>    screen I get the Grub prompt instead of the usual bluen screen where I
>    select  Linux or DOS. I hit tab to look at the commands, but I have no
>    idea what to do. How can I fix the boot loader without reformatting or
>    reinstalling either OS?

My guess is that you added or deleted a partition through Windows and
it also changed other partitions, among which are the one with your
boot files.

You can try to do this:
find /grub/grub.conf
or
find /boot/grub/grub.conf

Depending on whether you made /boot a separate partition or not, one
of these will output something like
(hd0,3)
Do
root (hd0,3)
cat /boot/grub/grub.conf

You should see the commands that grub normally runs. probably something
like:
default=0
timeout=10
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
        root (hd0,2)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
        initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

Now type them yourself, but not the one setting root (since it will
probably be wrong), that is, in this case
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img

If it worked, you should now be able to type 'boot' and start Linux.
Inside it, run 'grub-install /dev/hda' (or replace hda with where you
want to install it to, if you have more than one disk), and all should
be ok.

I would love to hear how it went.
Good luck,
-- 
Didi

> 
> 
> 
>    Thanks,
> 
>    Andrew

> _______________________________________________
> Bug-grub mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-grub