problems with grub and knoppix-installer

[Prototype2121]

Ok, the whole deal is I wanna leave hda1, NTFS WinXP hard drive, alone, and install Knoppix on hdb1(ext3), use the swap file hdb2, and have hdb3(FAT32) be the part of the HD both XP and Knoppix can access. So I made sure all the partitions were set on the secondary, then I installed, knoppix-installer liked the partitions very much, but when it came to grub/lilo, everything went downhill.

I told it to go with grub. After the install was finished, I took the CD out, reset, then it loaded a single command prompt.

grub>

Last type of linux I installed, Mepis, gave me grub, but it was a bit more graphical, with a set of options for which OS I wanted to boot with. Is there anyway to get Grub or Lilo to give me a list of options instead of a command line? As of now I can only boot off of the CD, and can't access XP anymore. Any ideas?

[UnderScore]

Boot off knoppix disc. Open up hdb1 and find boot/grub/menu.lst file. Open it up a text editor: sudo kate /mnt/hdb1/boot/grub/menu.lst

It should have different sections, 2 for Knoppix & 1 for Windows.
My Debian box's menu.lst file looks like:

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-2-686-smp
root            (hd0,7)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-686-smp root=/dev/hda8 ro nomce noacpi acpi=off
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-2-686-smp
savedefault
boot

title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.8-2-686-smp (recovery mode)
root            (hd0,7)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-686-smp root=/dev/hda8 ro single
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.8-2-686-smp
savedefault
boot

title           Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
root            (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader     +1

Your Windows section should match mine. The "title Microsoft Windows 2000 Professiona" line should not matter.

Your Debian/Knoppix sections shoudl look similar to mine.
The changes made to my lines to make it work on your system should look like:

root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8-2-686-smp root=/dev/hdb1 ro nomce noacpi acpi=off

If these changes are made then it should work. Save the changes & exit the Kate editor.

You may also have to reload grub to the Master Boot Record. Make sure /dev/hdb1 is mounted. Then:

sudo chroot /mnt/hdb1 /bin/bash

grub-install /dev/hda

exit

sudo umount /mnt/hdb1

Then reboot.

If you have difficulties please post the entire menu.lst file.

[Prototype2121]

Big thanks! After changing the kernel to the one I was using, it loaded just fine! Now everything is in german. And I can't read german well enough to find the control console to change language settings. Any idea what "Control Console" is in German?

EDIT--- Nevermind, I did the not so smart thing, and clicked on things at random. Found the control panel, was somewhat downhill from there.

Big thanks again, now I have working Knoppix on my secondary HD, I can do everything except my games under linux, and I have XP for that. Thank you Underscore!

[tsitras]

i am following the above procedure to save my installation of debian. the system is in reiserfs. after booting from the cd i could see the drives. the / is recognised as /mnt/hda2, and /mnt/hda1 is windows. i followed the above procedure and i am getting an error which says "bash: grub-installer : command not recognised"
any ideas?

[tsitras]

i forgot to mention that when i am issuing the grub-install /mnt/hda command, it comes up with an error that it is read-only.

[malaire]

i am following the above procedure to save my installation of debian. the system is in reiserfs. after booting from the cd i could see the drives. the / is recognised as /mnt/hda2, and /mnt/hda1 is windows. i followed the above procedure and i am getting an error which says "bash: grub-installer : command not recognised"
any ideas?

There seems to be a typo. You need to use grub-install not grub-installer.

i forgot to mention that when i am issuing the grub-install /mnt/hda command, it comes up with an error that it is read-only.

You could try sudo mount -o remount,rw /mnt/hda2. If /mnt/hda2 is already mounted as read-only, then this should make it writable.
You need to do this before the chroot-command.

[tsitras]

first i am issuing the command to become root and then i do mount -o remount,rw /mnt/hda2. then: chroot /mnt/hda2/ /bin/bash
and finally i am issuing the command: grub-install /dev/hda, it does not work. then i go the long way: grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/mnt/hda2 /mnt/hda. it comes with an error: mkdir : cannot create directory '/mnt/hda2/boot':no such file or directory
.still no progress. any ideas what i might be doing wrong?

[malaire]

first i am issuing the command to become root and then i do mount -o remount,rw /mnt/hda2. then: chroot /mnt/hda2/ /bin/bash
and finally i am issuing the command: grub-install /dev/hda, it does not work. then i go the long way: grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/mnt/hda2 /mnt/hda. it comes with an error: mkdir : cannot create directory '/mnt/hda2/boot':no such file or directory
.still no progress. any ideas what i might be doing wrong?

I'm not an expert with grub-install, but there seems to be 2 errors in last command.
First, if you are running from within chroot, you should probably use --root-directory=/ instead of --root-directory=/mnt/hda2 because there isn't any /mnt/hda2 within the chroot.
Second, the /mnt/hda in the end should be /dev/hda because grub is expecting a device-name here.

So you could try grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/ /dev/hda within the chroot or grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/mnt/hda2 /dev/hda outside the chroot.

[tsitras]

thanks a lot for the wuick reply.
i tried to do it without chroot but it did not worked. then i did it through chroot and here is the output:
Knoppix:/# grub-install --recheck --no-floppy --root-directory=/ /dev/hda
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
/sbin/grub-install: line 389: /dev/null: Permission denied
/dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.
Knoppix:/#

grrrrrrrrrrrr. what is wrong?