Re: REWRITE of " Recovering from _misinstall_ of GRUB 1.98"

[Jordan Uggla]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Richard Owlett <address@hidden> wrote:
> I can see how putting that on a system residing on a bootable removable
> device would prevent future problems. I do not see how that gets me out of
> the current problem (recall the the problem specification is that only the
> original Windows install shall be on the internal hard drive).

Only having Windows on the internal drive is solved by the below
install-mbr command, which installs an MS-style mbr to the device
specified, which means that it will chainload the first "active"
partition, containing the Windows bootloader, and therefore will boot
Windows.

> That explains one cryptic response on a Ubuntu list saying I missed an
> option on the install menu. Which version has the fix. As I'll probably go
> for one of the Ubuntu derivatives, what question should I ask to discover if
> chosen derivative has the fix?

The bug in question is
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/549756 which
shows that it has been fixed in Ubuntu 10.04.1 ( not the original
10.04 install media ) and if I'm reading correctly it sounds like the
fix made it into the original install media for Ubuntu 10.10 as well,
which is odd given that you say you installed from Ubuntu 10.10. The
fix is certainly in 11.04 and 11.10, though you may be running into a
slightly different bug. For derivatives you'd have to ask what version
of Ubuntu they are based off of and make sure that they use either the
Ubiquity installer or Debian installer (either of which would be fine,
it would be uncertain if they used something other than those two).

>>> From Ubuntu, "sudo apt-get install mbr&&  sudo install-mbr /dev/sdX"
>>
>> where sdX is the drive (*not* partition) containing Windows. This is
>> most likely /dev/sda, but be sure.
>
>
> Is that one line or two?
> IOW is the double ampersand a continuation "character"?

That is one line. It basically means: run "sudo apt-get install mbr"
and if that command succeeds then run "sudo install-mbr /dev/sdX". You
can remove the '&&' and split it into two lines if you want, but it
will work if entered on a single line as well.

> Thank you. Part of reason for moving to Linux is education.

You're welcome.

-- 
Jordan Uggla (Jordan_U on irc.freenode.net)