reinstall GRUB on non-bootable FC6 system

[CD-RW]

Hi all. Somehow I have managed to get my machine into a non bootable mode. All I get when trying to boot from GRUB (installed in the MBR of the only drive on the machine) is:

Searching for Boot Record from Floppy..Not Found
Searching for Boot Record from CDROM..Not Found
Searching for Boot Recodr from IDE-0..OK
GRUB _

and that's as far as I get.

I did a few things prior to this happening.

I attempted an online security update, which included a kernel update. The update failed due to running out of disk space. So I rebooted the machine with the GParted live CD-ROM to make some more space for the root partition. That upset the device names. So what I want to do is to re-install GRUB into the MBR, with the correct parameters for booting. Any suggestions on how to do this would be appreciated.

Thankyou

[sailor]

To re-install Grub:

1. Boot off the 1st Fedora CD or use the Fedora Rescue CD
2. At the boot prompt type 'linux rescue'
3. The rescue mode will find the fedora installation
4. Type 'chroot /mnt/sysimage'
5. Type 'grub-install /dev/hda' (to install Grub to the MBR of the 1st HD)"
(all commands without quotes)

[CD-RW]

Thanks for that sailor. I actually re-installed after resizing the partition. But that's handy to know, and I'll try it out anyway.

[CD-RW]

Originally Posted by sailor

To re-install Grub:

1. Boot off the 1st Fedora CD or use the Fedora Rescue CD
2. At the boot prompt type 'linux rescue'
3. The rescue mode will find the fedora installation
4. Type 'chroot /mnt/sysimage'
5. Type 'grub-install /dev/hda' (to install Grub to the MBR of the 1st HD)"
(all commands without quotes)

I have tried that, and I end up at the ' grub> _ ' prompt. I need to read the manual (using 'pinfo grub') to learn what to do next.

I have my partition layout. What do I need to type into the GRUB command line to get GRUB to boot the installed Linux under /boot?

Is there any way to make a GRUB bootable floppy disk, that will hold all the required files such as stage1, stage2, menu.lst etc. So this would give me the same GRUB GUI straight off the boot floppy, as I get when booting from a working GRUB MBR installation?

That way all I have to do is to edit the GRUB boot parameters by pressing 'e' and then all will be working again? Being on a floppy disk, I could even edit the menu list on the floppy, in theory the boot sequence should be exactly the same then, just like booting from the working MBR installation of GRUB.

[CD-RW]

Having re-installed GRUB to the MBR by following sailor's instructions above, I then needed to do:

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
 (hd0,12)
grub> root (hd0,12)
grub> kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 ro root=/dev/hda13
grub> initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img
grub> boot

Obviously, /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6
& initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.img
have to exist in the boot directory of the root partition for this to work.

This seems to do the trick for booting my setup! (I still would like to create a bootable floppy with GRUB files residing on it, if possible. (everything apart from the vmlinuz and initrd images above would be fine.)