[brokenhead]

From the Grub 2 guide:

GRUB 2 is standard on Kubuntu starting with 9.10. During its installation from the Live CD, you can specify if you want GRUB 2installed, and if so, where to put it. Here's how:

Start the Live CD installer.
Step: Disk Setup
"Specify Partitions Manually"
Step: Summary
Advanced button at lower right
Check or un-check to install GRUB 2 bootloader
Choose from the drop-down list where to install GRUB 2
sda = the MBR of drive sda
sda1 = the first partition of drive sda
sdb = the MBR of drive sdb
etc.

I am installing Ubuntu 9.10. I am dual-booting with XP and do not want to overwrite the MBR on my first hard drive.

In the past when I have dual- or multibooted with Ubuntu or other Linux distros, I have been able to place grub on a floppy (fd0). I know Ubuntu 9.10 has gone to Grub 2, but it should still be possible to write to the floppy instead of the hard disks.

But during install, when I reached the point in the quote above, the drop-down list does not include the floppy drive as an option. In the past (as with Ubuntu 9.05) I have merely overwritten the default "(hd0)" with "(fd0)." I tried that while installing 9.10 and received the fatal error that Grub could not be written to the device.

To be sure, I formatted the floppy and ran chkdsk on it with no errors.

Having grub on the floppy is much more convenient. You simply insert the floppy and you can dual- or multiboot. Eject it, and your system is a normal, single-boot machine again.

Can anyone help?

[lotuseclat79]

If you run the following command from a Linux Live CD - what output does it have?

$ sudo fdisk -l

-- Tom

[brokenhead]

Thank you, lotuseclat79.

I ran the command as you suggested and got this:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb31bb31b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 17949 144175311 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 17950 19457 12113010 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 17950 19305 10892038+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 19306 19457 1220908+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdc: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000001

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

[saikee]

We must be reading different Grub2 guides.

I reported make a Grub2 floppy here.

Works OK for me.

[brokenhead]

Thanks, saikee - that should be a must-read for those of us getting our feet wet with Grub 2.

The problem, it seems, is with this Ubuntu release (9.10). During install, both 9.10 and 9.04 have an "advanced" button you can select to choose where to put your bootloader, or even opt not to install one. With 9.04, I simply replaced (hd0) with (fd0). The install progressed and when it came to writing Grub, my floppy drive clicked on and as expected, Grub was written to the floppy disk. This left the MBR of my first harddisk untouched, which is what I wanted. Subsequently, when I needed to boot into Ubuntu, I just slid the floppy in and booted to it.

With Ubuntu 9.10, the install issues a fatal error when it tries to write to the floppy drive.

Thinking this must be a quirk of my floppy, I installed 9.10 as a guest OS in VirtualBox. It could neither see the floppy drive as 9.04 could, nor could it see an image file mounted as a virtual floppy.

So far I am concluding the trouble lies with this release of Ubuntu.

For anybody using Ubuntu 9.04 who is interested in upgrading Grub legacy to Grub 2, I found this. I have done the procedure on a virtual install of Ubuntu 9.04 and it worked perfectly.

My goal is the same - I want to dual-boot Ubuntu 9.10 with my main OS (XP Pro) and not overwrite the MBR on the first harddisk where XP lives. The only thing I can think of trying is to install Ubuntu and let it write the bootloader over the MBR, then following saikee's instructions to make the rescue floppy (Grub on a floppy). Once that is done, I could do a fixmbr from XP's recovery console to get the MBR back. Theoretically, that should give me what I want, which is a system that doesn't know it is dual-boot until I have it boot to that Grub 2 floppy, when it will read the config file (instead of Grub legacy's menu.lst) and see that it has other options. Seems like a round-about way of doing things, though...