Installed 4.2 to HD but Grub won't install

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Installed 4.2 to HD but Grub won't install
started by: blip

Posted by blip on Dec. 25 2007,23:20

Hi Robert et al
Hope you are all having a nice day today....I'm just computing as normal....on Xmas day

I am installing DSL for my Dad today...he was so impressed with it...as he's from old skool Dos days....he was particularly impressed with Wine being able to run his old snooker game at full speed - Ubuntu was too slow for this...so well done....another convert....

I've been trying to install DSL onto his PC/hard drive all day today....bear in mind Xubuntu had been installed on the hard drive before.....

I've run cfdisk and completely deleted the partition on hda1 and set up a bootable 'Linux' partition (at 40gb). I've rebooted.
Then I've tried to install DSL 4.2 and it's installed fine but when it gets to the end DSL reports 'unable to find miniroot loader' after it tries to install Grub. I've wiped the drive a number of times but still getting the same result.
When I reboot it says 'Grub loading please wait Error 15' so grub hasn't installed.

What could be the problem here do you think? The drive is ok to my knowledge.....do you think it's something still left on the disk ( ie a previous Grub)...?

Many thanks for your advice.

Posted by blip on Dec. 26 2007,14:27

Hi again...
I've tried installing DSL 4.2.1 on another PC....I've had the same results......
I tried installing DSL 3.4 onto these PCs and grub has installed fine (and DSL has installed to hd fine)....I will now try installing 4.1 and see what happens........

Posted by blip on Dec. 26 2007,15:27

Hi
I tried installing 4.1 and this has installed ok with Grub.........

Posted by roberts on Dec. 26 2007,17:01

miniroot is not used by DSL, this is typically from a 2.6 based system. Since it failed on many machines perhaps you have a bad burned cd.

Posted by lucky13 on Dec. 26 2007,18:41

Did you wipe your MBR? Or just delete partitions? (That's not the same thing -- grub and lilo can persist in MBR.)
To wipe it:

Code Sample

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

Wipe MBR but keep partition table intact (then reinstall grub/lilo):

Code Sample

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1

Make a copy of your MBR to a floppy from which to boot (which will be useless in your case right now since grub errs):

Code Sample

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

Posted by blip on Dec. 26 2007,20:51

Thanks..........
It did put back the MBR/grub when I re-installed 4.1 and it botted up fine. That's odd......anyway thanks for that tip...I just deleted partitions using cfdisk.....