Re: grub choices

[Roby <ElectricalSciences@Adelphia.net>]

Mark Grieveson wrote:

>>
>> Mark Grieveson wrote:
>>
>> > Hello.  I installed ms-dos, and then shrank it, and subsequently
>> > installed Debian in its own partition.  Debian's grub, however, did not
>> > see ms-dos as an operating system, and, therefore, did not set up a
>> > menu
>> > choice for it.  How do I go about setting up a menu choice for it in
>> > grub?
>> > 
>> > Thanks,
>> > 
>> > Mark
>>
>> As root, edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file.  Add something like this:
>>
>> title MS-DOS
>> root (hd0,0)
>> makeactive
>> chainloader +1
>>
>> Change (hd0,0) to something else if dos isn't on the first partition
>> (hda1).
>>
>> Roby
> I tried this, and it stated something like that ext3 could not be
> found.  I then changed root to be (hd0,2).  It gave me a more general
> error.  I'm not sure what to try now.

Start up Debian.  Then, as root (important!!) start grub.  Then type:
"root (hd0," without the quotes at the grub prompt.  Then press tab.
On this box, I get:
    GNU GRUB  version 0.97  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
   completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> root (hd0,
 Possible partitions are:
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0x6
   Partition num: 3,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x17
   Partition num: 4,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
   Partition num: 5,  Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0x6
   Partition num: 6,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 7,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 8,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> quit

Partition 0 is where my ms-dos drive C: (type fat, 0x6) and the other
fat, 0x6 is what DOS knows as drive D:.  So my grub entry for DOS on
hda1 is root (hd0,0).  Yours is apparently somewhere else ... or maybe
overwritten during a zealous install.

Another way to sort this out is fdisk -l as root (that's letter "l").
Like so:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1          49      393561    6  FAT16
/dev/hda2              50        4594    36507712+   5  Extended
/dev/hda4            8756        9729     7823655   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda5              50          85      289138+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6              86         316     1855476    6  FAT16
/dev/hda7             317         924     4883728+  83  Linux
/dev/hda8             925        4571    29294496   83  Linux
/dev/hda9            4572        4594      184716   83  Linux

Better now?