Ubuntu
grub package

Grub, LILO, and Error 17's

Asked by Dais

I am getting an “Error 17” from Grub. I believe this problem has been answered in the thread:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub/+question/47224

Thx Alvin, his solution was:
>> Ultimately the problem was the BIOS of my Tyan S1854 motherboard could not recognize the full size of my hard drive and therefore could not read sectors past a certain point
>> Moved XP partition so that there was unused disk space in the first 300 MB of the disk. So now I had unused disk space before and after my XP partition.
>> The unused space before the XP partition I formatted as ext3 and mounted /boot to it. The unused space after the XP partition I formatted most of it as ext3 and mounted / to it.

I have a 160Gb HD that the BIOS only sees as 8.5Gb, and XP is installed first.
I will try Alvin’s solution. However I have a further question:

The PC in question will be part of a Lab’. It has XP on it; I installed Ubuntu 8.1 Server to get the Error 17 message. I intend to put OpenSuse 11.0 Desktop on it and an old version of Mandrake 2.4.
The way I am seeing it I need to allow 900Mb at the beginning of the HD, 300Mb for each /boot directory of the different Linuxs. If XP follows straight after the 900Mb it should also be ok. This sound feasible?

Another thought:
Mandrake uses an old version of LILO multiboot, which I don’t want to use. But I DO want to install Mandrake last. I am not sure but suspect that LILO will go ahead and overwrite GRUB without asking me. Is there anyway then to run GRUB and have it rewrite over LILO?

Thx for any help, sry if these are noob questions.

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Wyatt Smith (wyatt-smith) said : 		#1

You can use the the LiveCD to reinstall grub to the MBR. Boot to the LiveCD and then open a terminal.

From the terminal open a grub shell
sudo grub

Then identify your boot partitions with
grub> find /grub/stage1

This should return output in the form of (hdX,Y). These will be all the partitions which have linux installed. Next choose which OS/partition should handle grub with. Please use the proper values instead of X and Y.
gub> root (hdX,Y)

Next install grub to the MBR with of drive X with
grub> setup (hdX)

A lot of useful information can be found on bigponds grub page. I suggest you read the section regarding config file booting. I like this method best for booting multiple linux distros. Please read and understand this. It will be very helpful
http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/p15.htm#Second_method_configfile_boot

Hope this helps

Revision history for this message
Dais (jasonh07) said : 		#2

Thx a lot for the answer. I will check out the link now.

LoL - just started reading text book on LPIC certification. Page 22 "some boot loaders can't asccess kernel that is passed the first 1024 cylinders on the disk... problem most often seen in dual boot installs... always install /boot at the beginning"
I serve as a classic example of RTFM :)