Fedora :: Method To Prevent Grub Installer From Overwriting MBR Pointer
Jun 17, 2010
Is there a method to prevent the grub installer from overwriting the MBR pointer when grub or the kernel is updated? I'm running a multiboot system and when Fedora's grub installs, then OpenSolaris' partition isn't included in the bootlist and Ubuntu's menu line has a chainloader line that doesn't resolve correctly, requiring a hand edit.I may try to do a chmod 444 grub-install , but I'm not so sure what the reprocussions may be.
First windows xp wouldn't boot - then opensuse **** out and I had nothing but a black screen. I spent about two days trying to figure out what in god's name happened. I finally got a copy of winxp recovery disk and it couldn't find the partition that windows was on. That gave me some idea of what was going on. So I tried to fix the matter from partitionmagic. I reinstalled grub making sure that everything was associated properly. I still couldn't get either opensuse or windows to boot after many many different trial and error attempts.
After deciding there was no help for it. I decided to slave my hard drive and wipe to start over. So I booted partition magic from USB and deleted my opensuse partition and -what do you know - windows booted right up. Aside from feeling windows xp's smug grin as the logo appeared - i am perplexed as to how this happened. My guess is that MBR tried to overwrite grub. But I think that the loader was confused and trying to boot from the wrong partition.
I want to reinstall opensuse again. However I want to make sure that this doesn't happen. I need my xp partition for examsoft because wine doesn't seem to work for it and I can't vbox it. So is there some way to make sure that when I do install from DVD on my USB that:
1) repositories are correct 2) MBR doesn't overwrite grub (should I install Grub2 or LILO?)
I'm wondering how I would go about dual-booting Ubuntu with openSUSE installed first?
I'm just a little bit concerned about the versions of Grub overwriting the openSUSE version or theme or something.
Would it work okay if I just shrink my openSUSE partition and then set the Ubuntu installer to install Ubuntu to the free space only or do I need to edit the grub file and stuff?
I have a persistent usb key with Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook remix. I need to know how to stop the installer fro0m running on boot so that it just goes to the desktop
I am trying to prevent the dm_mod and friends from loading during install.I am installing by PXE boot with NFS and kickstart files over http. This works fine for other machines.Ok, I have a Dell PowerEdge 2900 III with 8gig ram, PERC 6/i raid controller.The raid has 8 1TB drives in it, so the total size of the device is >2TB.There is also an SATA drive, which is NOT on the raid controller.
The problem is, I want to install CentOS on the SATA drive. The SATA drive comes up as a device-mapper drive, with a big crazy device name.This is ok, but the problem is, when the system goes to boot, it just says 'missing operating system'.I can't boot from the raid because it is large enough to require a GPT partition, and CentOS says it can't boot from a GPT partition.The SATA drive would work FINE if I could just prevent the damn device mapper from loading, so that I could install on the SATA drive in ordinary SATA mode.
I have tried re-squashing the stage2.img with /etc/modprobe.conf with alias dm_mod off and such, no luck.I also tried adding an /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file, that did not work either.I also tried putting blacklist= dm_mod in the kickstart file, but that seems to be a fedora-only option and it kills my install. any ideas on preventing the dm_mod et. al. from loading at install time??
In sda, I have 4 partitions, and I have windows 7 in one of the extended partitions [not in the primary partition].
In sdb, I have 3 partitions. 2 for storage, and 1 10GB drive for Ubuntu. Again, Ubuntu is not of a primary partition.
I had ubuntu 10.04 running on that for a long time. However, I wanted to reinstall ubuntu and use 10.10.This is what I did EXACTLY:Booted from Ubuntu install CD
Chose advanced istall
Selected sdb3 for Ubuntu
I installed GRUB2 on the SAME partition as Ubuntu aka sdb3 Installed then rebooted
I can boot into Ubuntu fine, but whenever I select Windows 7 bootloader from the GRUB menu, the screen goes black, and my PC reboots.
Boot Info:
Code: Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010 [code]....
ls: reading directory sda6/: Input/output error
I have tried the testdisk/update-grub method, but it didn't work.
I've just installed Fedora (F13) for the first time, on a new HDD, to give myself a dual-boot system. So currently I have:
So, at the appropriate stage in the install menu, there is an option for where to install GRUB, and a drop-down to choose which drive is the primary BIOS boot drive.
However, in both cases, no other drive except my new sdc is visible. So, I can install GRUB to MBR of sdc, or to first sector of boot partition - but no option to put it to my primary boot drive MBR on sda.
Likewise, in the GRUB configuration page, if I go to Add another OS, the only option it gives me is my new Fedora install. It doesn't list the Vista OS on sda at all.
The result is that I can boot to either OS by changing the boot drive priority in BIOS.
I guess my question is this: - is this expected behaviour from the installer, meaning that I'll need to configure GRUB manually somehow? (gulp ) or - did I do something wrong in the install process? or - is this some weird bug manifesting itself?
Somehow my file encryption password changed so when I went to re-install Fedora it said SDA-2 will not be available during installation.Is there a way to erase the whole disk including the ecrypted portion?
My laptop is running gentoo linux but I wanted to make my own minimalistic linux distro. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but I need to repartition my hard drive for this. I have the tools to do this (on a cd) but the problem I am encountering is the bios is locked. The bios is locked and it boots from the hard drive first and then the cd-rom drive. I don't have the bios password and the last place I took the laptop to for repair locked the bios, didn't fix the problem, and charged me $60 so they could "look" at it. I fixed the original problem by myself but the bios is still locked and they claim they have no idea how it got locked. Is there any way to make grub "go back" so to speak so that the computer will boot from a cd? I can remove the hard drive and it will boot from the CD but that kinda defeats the purpose.
I want to prevent grub-pc from automatically creating links to other operating systems on my laptop. Whenever there is a kernel update, grub.cfg ends with links pointing at my Windows 7 installation - I want to get rid of those links. At the moment I am doing that by manually editing the grub.cfg file and it has always worked that way. I tried to force grub-pc to avoid creating links to Windows by renaming the relevant scripts in /etc/grub.d edbarx@edbarx-pc2:/etc/grub.d$ ls 00_header 05_debian_theme 10_linux 20_linux_xen _30_os-prober _30_otheros 40_custom 41_custom README As you can see I added an underscore to the files that I don't want to be executed.
I think this can be solved by changing the file permissions of the unwanted scripts making them impossible to execute.
edbarx@edbarx-pc2:/etc/grub.d$ ls -l total 52 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 6433 Aug 7 18:10 00_header -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1474 Jul 16 18:46 05_debian_theme -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4252 Aug 7 18:10 10_linux
I want to use my BootIt NG boot menu. How would I go about installing Debian 5.0.3 and prevent Grub from loading into MBR? I don't remember being asked by the installer where to put Grub. Unlike Fedora where you can choose MBR or boot section of the target partition. Debian 5.0.3 -
I've got 2 HDDs. Ubuntu 10.04 is installed on the first and Windows on the second. But Windows is only on a small partition for special cases. Therefore I don't want that Windows to be included in GRUB whenever the kernel is updated or whenever I run update-grub. If I really want to start Windows, I am able to do so via a menu from BIOS.Is it possible to permanently exclude Windows from grub or disable GRUB's autosearching for other operating systems?
I actually have a Suse running on a partitioned harddisk of 27GB but I prefer Fedore anyway. I would like to install Linus Fedora on my computer to make a dual boot system (Vista and Linus) by overwriting the previous Suse. My question is
Will I be in OS booting trouble (i.e unable to resurect the previous boot screens, windows might possibly be deleted, or not be present in the boot options) if this is done ?
Also, because I have only one disk (the first disk of Fedora 11 downloaded), will it be fine with just one first disk ? (there are several to download but I think I assume I am not going to use all of them during installation, right ?)
The ability to manually boot using the Grub command-line constitutes a big security risk in Linux, IMO.Any OS can be booted in this manner from a PXE-LAN, USB, or CD/DVD drive, circumventing BIOS-imposed boot restrictions. (Once a foreign OS is booted, of course, it can be used to access any part of an unencrypted hard drive.) Placing passwords or locking menu items (in the Grub configuration files) does not prevent a user from booting manually using commands entered at the grub command-line.
As it stands now, when presented with the Grub menu (or after bringing up a hidden Grub menu with the "ESC" key), a user only needs to hit "c" to enter the Grub command-line mode to facilitate any type of bootup whatsoever. (They can then enter manually the Grub commands to boot an OS on any device.) This is extremely insecure and allows any passerby to boot the computer with a few keystrokes and a bootable USB drive. How do I configure Grub so that it will require a password in order to enter the command-line mode (and thereby restrict boot options to the menu, which can then be password protected/locked) ?
I have been googling trying to fix this ... basicly I have a (int **) variable, and when I try to pass a (int) value to a specific position, I have seg.fault.Resuming what I have is:
I need to boot into a Windows XP installer CD from GRUB. How can I do this?
(The reason is that I need to use drivemap to install to a secondary hard drive.)
Are there any viable workarounds? For instance would installing to the primary disk, copying to the other disk, and then using chainloader to point directly to ntldr work?
I am installing Whezzy and the installer failed to install grub on the MBR of /dev/sda
My disks are - /dev/sda : the flash drive with the debian ISO - /dev/sbd : a small SSD for the / partition (sdb1) - /dev/sdc + /dev/sdd : a software RAID-1 array with LVM for /home, ...
Grub fails to install on /dev/sda which makes sense since this is the flash drive containing the Debian ISO so no MBR.
I already tried to run grub-update manually on /dev/sdb (with chroot /target grub-install --no-floppy --force "/dev/sdb" ).
It works but the system is not directly bootable. I had access to a second PC to read the grub documentation so was able to boot and to fix my system but this is annoying.
Is it normal to see my flash drive as /dev/sda? Could it be that my flash drive is incorrectly detected as a HD?
Is there a way to force the installer to install grub on /dev/sdb?
I know this is not strictly a Ubuntu question, but I was unsure where to ask this question and since it is about installing Ubuntu Server, I put this question here.
I have used the Universal USB installer to create an install USB device, but I also need to be able to boot to a DOS prompt so I can update the bios if I need to. I would like to have just a single USB drive rather than having to carry two of them around.
Has anybody used the Universal USB installer and is there a way to modify the resulting USB installer so that I could say add a menu program such as grub or something else that would allow me to either access the installer or go to a DOS prompt? Kind of like the way CloneZilla does or perhaps the gparted Live CD.
Has anyone tried encrypting the boot partition to prevent the kernel from being modified. Iv tried following this but I'm running into issues when building. [URL] Im using the source from bzr checkout [URL] Last time I tried I screwed grub and it wouldnt boot.
Im trying to do a frugal install off the hard drive (no usb,cdrom) with unetbootin. It installs grub and then will boot the installer but is still tries to find the removable media. Whats going on????
I want to create an alias or shell script (I use bash and ksh at work) that will work like mv -bf but instead of adding a ~ I want to add a date time stamp. So if I move a file like greg.txt into a directory that already has a greg.txt it will rename or copy it to greg.txt.date-time. I want this to be pretty global, seemless, and *automatic*. I am familiar with 'no clobber' and it doesn't meet the requirements.
I want to edit an .ini file for Qmc2.I find qmc2.ini with the browse folder option.I open it with Gedit and make my changes (rom path)but then I cannot save the file. Obviously I can use terminal, something like "su - Gedit /etc/qmc2/qmc2.ini"but what if I don't want to? Can I just use the GUI with su privilages?
I have synced fedora 15 in mirror. I have downloaded and burned iso image into DVD and installed it successfully in my laptop. But when trying to install through URL method, After giving Path of the mirror then it shows "Waiting for Network manager to configure em1", then after some time , it shows "There was an error configuring your network interface //retry//" then "The URL provided doesn't contain installation media".. I dont knw wt is the error ??? can any1 installed fedora15 through URL method from any mirror.?
I looked in the man cp pages to find an option that allows me to copy files without overwriting and without having to answer no every time prompted (huge number of files) but i didn't find any.
Yesterday i download a new firefox china edition from [url] i just want to change my web browse.but it appears two problems first one,after tar the bag , i use this command ~/firefox/firefox want to start the firefox ,bu it tells me "cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied" then i use "setenforce 0" shut down the selinux ,after that i can start firefox, problems is i need to "setenforce 0"evertime if i restart my computer ,i can't do this again and again how can i do that? second one is my input method can't input chinese ,I think with the above issues，input method can't find input windows.
I'm running 12, not 11. I don't know why I had 11 in my head. Can this be moved BACK from EOL? If not, I'll start a new thread. Sorry. My wife and I have matching HP EliteBook 8730w "mobile workstations" (laptops that need a donkey to move them). We also have matching LG second screens. Unfortunately, we have matching mouse pointer issues too, as you might expect.
99% of the time we work away without issue. 1% of the time, Fedora suddenly stops showing the mouse pointer in the separate LG screen. The pointer is there, you can use it (if you can guess where the hell it is!) but you can't see it. Only a reboot seems to solve the problem.
It's worth noting xorg.conf is not being used. It's an nVidia card in these laptops and I tried the latest drivers from them - they totally wiped out the display, I mean total FAIL, unusable. Had to boot up in without GNOME, run level 3, to fix it. After much messing around, I think I used the FirstAidKit plugin for xserver to repair things. Since then there is no xorg.conf:
[Code]....
If I restore *any* xorg.conf file it all goes wrong again, so I'm guessing there are either some defaults at play or there's another system currently managing my display. Either way, restoring/editing xorg.conf won't help me with the current set-up.
Running Fedora 14, and when I wake the computer after not using it for a few hours I get a black screen with only the mouse pointer visible. This can sometimes be for a minute or up to 5 or 10 minutes, I'm not quite sure what the issue is. I have the screen saver set to blank screen, and I have the computer set to never go into sleep mode, however the display turns off. I just tested it out with the screen saver only activated and it wakes fine, and then set it to turn the display off after 5 minutes, and it wakes up fine if I try then. The issue is when it has been idle for the night or longer. I am running this machine through a KVM, so I'm not sure if that may have something to do with it. You can see from the output here that the mouse seems to be getting discovered all over every time I switch back to this machine.
[Code].....
This isn't a major issue, but it is very annoying if I want to switch over to this machine to get a few things done and switch back. Also, if I am waiting at the blank screen with the mouse, I can still press ctrl + F2 to access the terminal immediately, so the computer is functional but the GUI seems to be delayed in coming back.
When I boot from my new Fedora15 LiveCD I get this on startup:
Code: Pointer to BIT loadval table invalid. Everything appears to be working pretty normally other than the fact that the error came up on the screen. Is this going to be a major problem? Is there some kind of fix or patch that I can apply?
I am experiencing a bug when overwriting files on FTP servers using the default nautilus FTP client.When I upload a file to replace an existing file via FTP, after I confirm the prompt asking me to overwrite, the content of the newly uploaded file is appended to the existing file's contents. The resulting file contains the content from both files. In order to fix this bug, I am forced to delete the existing file before uploading the new file.If I upload the same file multiple times, the error will continue to occur and append the new file to the existing file.
