[gust0208]

Hello everyone,

I have an older laptop that I dual boot with Ubuntu and Win XP SP2. I had been using the default GRUB bootloader installed by Ubuntu. Tonight, I re-installed Win XP to start with a clean slate on its partition, but Windows wrote over the MBR and got rid of GRUB! Now I automatically boot into XP without option to go to Ubuntu. I have System Commander, so I put that on, but gives me the error for Ubuntu that it is has an invalid boot record.

Any ideas on how to recover my multi-boot capabilities? I can re-install Ubuntu and have the installer put GRUB back on, but I would rather not do that unless I have to.

Cheers,
Tom

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Hi Tom!

Windows kinda nasty that way huh?

Here's our first kick at the cat:

1) Insert install CD and boot
2) At the prompt, enter:

linux rescue root=/dev/hdaX

where X is the partition you have Ubuntu on. This assumes you have a single hard disk. If you have 2 or more, then the "a" would change if Ubuntu is not on your primary disk. Example: 2 HD's, Ubuntu on second, command would be "linux rescue root=/dev/hdbX"
This should boot you into your Ubuntu install where you can repair Grub. ("/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda" should work. If not, try "updategrub")

If that fails, I do know that SimplyMepis live cd will allow you to run updategrub (it did last time I tried it anyway) so you may want to try this step first. Mepis is a nice distro as well, and good to have in your toolkit.

You can score the ISO from here:
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distribut...PIS-3.3.1-1.iso

Mepis live boot root password is "root"

If those two fixes fail, lemme know and we can try some other stuff.

Best of luck!
SD

Edited by SoccerDad, 29 July 2005 - 09:44 AM.

[SoccerDad]

Hi Tom!

Windows kinda nasty that way huh?

Here's our first kick at the cat:

1) Insert install CD and boot
2) At the prompt, enter:

linux rescue root=/dev/hdaX

where X is the partition you have Ubuntu on. This assumes you have a single hard disk. If you have 2 or more, then the "a" would change if Ubuntu is not on your primary disk. Example: 2 HD's, Ubuntu on second, command would be "linux rescue root=/dev/hdbX"
This should boot you into your Ubuntu install where you can repair Grub. ("/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda" should work. If not, try "updategrub")

If that fails, I do know that SimplyMepis live cd will allow you to run updategrub (it did last time I tried it anyway) so you may want to try this step first. Mepis is a nice distro as well, and good to have in your toolkit.

You can score the ISO from here:
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distribut...PIS-3.3.1-1.iso

Mepis live boot root password is "root"

If those two fixes fail, lemme know and we can try some other stuff.

Best of luck!
SD

Edited by SoccerDad, 29 July 2005 - 09:44 AM.

[gust0208]

Hey SoccerDad,

Thanks for the tips and my GRUB is back. I am going to do some searching on modifying my GRUB to change default OS and see what other options exist.

Cheers and thanks for the help.

- Tom

[SoccerDad]

Anytime Tom! Glad to hear you're back in the saddle. Happy Grubbin'!