Fedora Core 4 did NOT install Grub

[adamb100]

I did 3 installs of FC4 on this machine. here is what happened:

1st install - Grub returned error 15
2nd install - Boot up gave me the Grub Shell
3rd install - FC4 didn't install grub at all.

So as previously mentioned I told FC4 to install Grub in the MBR and stuff. It didn't.

[jombeewoof]

can you install grub to a boot disk?

[adamb100]

Not sure how. I am a grub n00b.

[jombeewoof]

http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=59101

check the bottom post

[adamb100]

There is a small problem. I don't have a floppy drive.

[adamb100]

I also tried the way mentioned in there to install to MBR and got this:

/dev/hdb1 does not have corresponding BIOS drive.

[jombeewoof]

what disk are you trying to insatll to (primary master or slave) usually you want grub on /dev/hda no partition number should be necessary

[adamb100]

I'm trying to install it on /dev/hda

[strikeforce]

isn't the command grub install /dev/hda ?

If you run that from the command line that should install grub on the mbr I thought.

my apologies I knew it was something like that :P

[adamb100]

nah, it's grub-install /dev/hda

[jombeewoof]

easy way to find out
what is your hard drive structure lilke
what is the primary master
what is the primary slave
secondary master
secondary slave

what is attatched, are you dual booting, did you manually partition the drive(s) during install, etc,,, the more information we have the easier it will be to pinpoint what is wrong

[adamb100]

2 Hard drives. 1 120GB(Windows) 1 60GB(FC4)

Primary Master = Windows
Primary Slave = Linux
2nd Master = DVD Burner
2nd Slave = DVD-ROM

[jombeewoof]

hmmm
do you have bios virus protection enabled? that would cause your mbr to be read only but it should give you a message.

what about windows? does that still boot up normally?

[adamb100]

Yeah I got that virus protection but it never stopped other distros from installing Grub/Lilo. Windows does boot normally.

[jombeewoof]

windows xp right?

make sure you have an administrator password (just in case)
remove that boot sector virus protection
grub-install /dev/hda

that should work but I'm pretty sure it will not recognize your windows on /dev/hda you'll need to add something like this

title Windows 2000
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1

title can be whatever you want
rootnoverify just says don't verify directory of hd0,0 (primary master, first primary partition)
chainloader hands control off to boot.ini