dual boot on a compaq now only boots to hp backup & recovery manager

Quercus ruber · 12-21-2008, 05:02 AM

hi
I set up a relative's laptop to dual boot into vista or pclos and that was fine. But the hp recovery & rescue manager partition was recognised as bootable and added as a grub entry, which my relative accidentally chose. Now the machine skips grub and only boots to the hp r & r manager. Of course, we don't have the recovery disks. But the data is still there. I'm using the machine now, having booted with a live slax stick, and everything is still there. Has the mbr been overwritten? Here is the result of fdisk:

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9c62b218

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        3706    29768413+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2   *        8582        9527     7585792    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            9527        9730     1627136    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4            3707        8581    39158437+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5            3707        5377    13422276   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            5378        5886     4088511   82  Linux swap
/dev/sda7            5887        8581    21647556   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

And here is menu.lst

Code:

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,4)/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/pclinuxos/boot/message
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux root=/dev/sda5  acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=linux-nonfb root=/dev/sda5  acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz BOOT_IMAGE=failsafe root=/dev/sda5  failsafe acpi=on resume=/dev/sda6
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title windows1
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

title windows2
root (hd0,2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Any help would be appreciated. As the data still seems to be in situ, I'd rather not delete or reformat anything except as a really last resort.

ros

JosipBroz · 12-21-2008, 07:23 AM

No need to reformat anything. The solution is actually extremely simple: you have to make your GNU/Linux partition the active one. Currently, thanx to the not-so-clever "makeactive" lines in your menu.lst, the two Windows partitions will be re-activated when first booted into, putting you through all this hassle again. To summarize:
1 -- make the desired GNU/Linux partition (i.e. either sda5 or sda7) active (or "bootable" as they sometimes call it) with a suitable tool, such as gparted, fdisk etc.
2 -- comment-out both "makeactive" lines in your menu.lst by prepending a "#" (without quotes).
3 -- test your configuration.
4 -- post back, specifying any residual problems.
Cheerz & Good Luck

Junior Hacker · 12-25-2008, 03:52 AM

Quote:

Has the mbr been overwritten?

Probably, just the boot loader section, you need to reinstall grub. You should be able to use the PCLinux install CD/DVD to get you to recovery mode and repair the MBR.

Junior Hacker · 12-25-2008, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Even if free software were crap, it should still get our preference over the non-free crap secreted by IT corporations.

You're only here for a little time, why punish yourself?
Live while you're alive!
You can't take the money with you.

sycamorex · 12-25-2008, 03:55 AM

Or you can download supergrub, which will automatically restore your grub.

CJS · 12-25-2008, 09:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JosipBroz

No need to reformat anything. The solution is actually extremely simple: you have to make your GNU/Linux partition the active one. Currently, thanx to the not-so-clever "makeactive" lines in your menu.lst, the two Windows partitions will be re-activated when first booted into, putting you through all this hassle again. To summarize:
1 -- make the desired GNU/Linux partition (i.e. either sda5 or sda7) active (or "bootable" as they sometimes call it) with a suitable tool, such as gparted, fdisk etc.
2 -- comment-out both "makeactive" lines in your menu.lst by prepending a "#" (without quotes).
3 -- test your configuration.
4 -- post back, specifying any residual problems.
Cheerz & Good Luck

That will only work if Quercus ruber has Grub installed to the boot sector of his/her Linux partition that is marked as active; if Quercus ruber was previously using Grub in the MBR to boot all their OSes, it is not likely that the Linux partition will currently have Grub installed to the boot sector. What you describe could certainly work if Quercus ruber wants to install Grub to the boot sector of the Linux partition, but I think it is better to just install Grub to the MBR, because then you get the benefit of using Grub's stage1.5 file which has error reporting.

Quercus ruber · 01-07-2009, 01:58 AM

Hi

apologies for the delay - blame it on the holiday season. JosipBroz, your solution did not work because grub was installed in the MBR not on the boot sector of my linux partition.

I fixed it like this.

booted with a rescue cd

Code:

$ sudo su
# mkdir /mnt/test
# mount -t ext3 -o dev /dev/sda5 /mnt/test
# chroot /dev/sda5
# grub-install /dev/sda
# exit
# umount /mnt/test

Then I removed the windows 1 and 2 options from menu.lst

Now its fine.

For future reference:

http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/Howto_Fix_Grub

Thanks to sycamorex for the supergrub link.

ros