Why was my MBR wiped out?

Gerhardt · n00b Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Columbus, Ohio

I know my questions have got to be tiring, but I have run into yet another problem I can't explain. For some reason when I configured GRUB to load my Windows HDD as a dual boot system, it wiped out the windows Master Boot Record. Could somebody help explain why and how to stop it from happening? I'm somewhat afraid to attempt to boot to it again, becouse the only way I could find to fix the problem was to re-install windows on another HDD and use that one to fix the boot.ini and MBR on the original Windows drive.

Was that too confusing?
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troymc · Guru Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 553

You should give us some more details to work with - specifically drive & OS layout, and what error messages you see when the problem occurs.

MBR problems are trivial to fix, so if you think you have that problem again, just boot a Windows bootdisk and run fdisk /mbr to punch a new Windows MBR.

But, in general, yes, if you install GRUB, you are installing it onto the MBR. 90+ % of all linux install docs have you do this.

You need to decide which bootloader will be your primary one - either Windows or GRUB. It does not matter which way you choose, but honestly, using GRUB is the easiest.

If you want Windows to be your primary bootloader, then here are some instructions to follow to configure it to dual boot Linux: http://www.highlandsun.com/hyc/linuxboot.html

If you want to use GRUB, then install it, boot into Linux, then edit your grub.conf file and uncomment out the Windows entry, and make sure it points to your Windows disk/partition. Any GRUB documentation will show you how to do this.

Look at some of these HOWTOs for more detailed info: http://gentoo-wiki.com/Index:HOWTO#Booting_.2F_Windows

troymc

troymc · Guru Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 553

Gerhardt · n00b Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Columbus, Ohio

I get what your getting at, but what i'd like to know is why GRUB is wiping out the MBR on the 2nd HDD, which GRUB is not installed on. I tried it again, and I got the same result. Thanks for the fdisk /mbr info by the way. I double checked my grub.conf and everything looks OK. I'll post it as soon as I can.
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jmbsvicetto · Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 3:19 pm Post subject:

Hi.

If GRUB is installing into the MBR of the second disk, you must be doing something like:

Gerhardt · n00b Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Columbus, Ohio

yep, that was it
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jmbsvicetto · Posted: Tue May 16, 2006 9:32 am Post subject:

If you feel your problem has been solved, please add [solved] to the thread title (edit first post).
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