[NTLUG:Discuss] Boot Loader

[terry]

If  you look at the file:
/etc/grub.conf
you'll see the instructions that are  used to write grub bootloader to 
the mbr of whatever drive you wanna write it to.

Yours apparently looks like this: (quoted from your earlier post):
---
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title DELL-DIAG
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1
title WIN-XP
        rootnoverify (hd0,1)
        chainloader +1
title CURRENT_LINUX
        root (hd1,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 root=/dev/hdb2 ro
---

Let's look at it line by line.  The first line grabs the splash screen 
from the second drive, hdb ( or d: )

splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

hd1,0 in grub lingo translates to "second drive, first partition"
If it said hd0,0  that would translate to "first drive, first partition"
and the splash image you'll find right where it says, /grub/splash.xpm.gz
(seeing the .gz on the end of it indicates that it's a gzip file, that it's compressed but will be automatically uncompressed when needed.)

The second section points to some sort of diagnosis  thing: 
---
title DELL-DIAG
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1
---
the words after title, will be displayed in the appropriate place in the splash screen, "DELL-DIAG"
and it's located in the fist partition of the first drive on the first ide port.
chainloader +1 is just method of loading, or at least that's as close as I can come to explaining that one, (someone else will have to chime in on that one if you want more info cuz that's where my intelligence ends, at chainloaders)

Now for the MS Windows-XP part:
---
title WIN-XP
        rootnoverify (hd0,1)
        chainloader +1
---
Now we get to MS Windows-XP, which is correctly shown to reside in the second partition of the first drive.  And "chainloader +1"  should be the proper command to boot it.  ( It looks okay to me.)

Now for the linux part:
---
title CURRENT_LINUX
        root (hd1,0)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 root=/dev/hdb2 ro
---
You could shorten the title to just LINUX if you want, but as it stands CURRENT_LINUX will show up in the splash screen.  It's showing root to be in the first partition of the second drive.  It goes on to give the name of the kernel (vmlinuz-2.4.20-8) and location, /dev/hdb2, (second partition of the second drive).  ro = write only, (it'll boot it as write only file system).

It all looks okay to me.

---
For comparison sake, look at mine:
---
default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
        initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img
title DOS
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1
---
default=0 means that the first entry is default.
timeout=10 means that it'll give me 10 seconds to choose.

You see that my "Red Hat Linux" resides at hd0,1  ( second partition on first hard drive )
Next you see that "DOS" is located on the first partition of the first hard drive.  
---

By now, you should have a pretty good handle on the situation, right?
Got it?


-- 
Registered Linux User #188099
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