Grub and two installed distros (Fedora 4 and Mandriva LE2005)

[jpalfree]

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Hi,
Grub already can boot fedora core 4 but i'd like to configure grub to boot mandriva aswell. I installed the lilo booter to a floppy and can start mandriva like that but i'd like grub to handle it. I"m sure there's an easy way to do it... probably edit /boot/grub.conf... but i don't know how. Can someone explain?

[dylunio]

Ok, it's quite easy to do this.

For my examples Mandriva will be hda3 and Fedora will be hda2 - change them to whatever the drives are.

Firstly mount the mandriva partition with

su
[rootpass]
mkdir /mnt/mandriva
mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/mandriva
ls /mnt/mandriva/boot

this will give an output like

README.initrd System.map-ide-2.4.26 config-ide-2.4.26 vmlinuz
System.map config diag1.img vmlinuz-ide-2.4.26
System.map-2.6.11 config-2.6.11

I've hightlighted the inportant filename, this is the file you point grub at to boot.

Now let's edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file. You should add a stanza like this:

title Mandriva
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3

Notice the (hd0,2) which is how grub names partitions and drives, this table should help you decice the right name for your mandriva partition and drive.

/dev/hda1 (hd0,0) First hard disk on first IDE cable, first partition
/dev/hda2 (hd0,1) First hard disk on first IDE cable, second partition
/dev/hda3 (hd0,2) First hard disk on first IDE cable, third partition
/dev/hdb1 (hd1,0) Second hard disk on first IDE cable, first partition
/dev/hdb2 (hd1,1) Second hard disk on first IDE cable, second partition
/dev/hdb3 (hd1,2) Second hard disk on first IDE cable, third partition
/dev/hdc1 (hd2,0) First hard disk on second IDE cable, first partition
/dev/hdc2 (hd2,1) First hard disk on second IDE cable, second partition
/dev/hdc3 (hd2,2) First hard disk on second IDE cable, third partition
/dev/hdd1 (hd3,0) Second hard disk on second IDE cable, first partition
/dev/hdd2 (hd3,1) Second hard disk on second IDE cable, second partition
/dev/hdd3 (hd3,2) Second hard disk on second IDE cable, third partition

dylunio

[jpalfree]

Success! Thanks very much!

i did things a bit differently though.

what i added to grub.conf is this:

title mandriva
root (hda0, 4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/sda5 (because it's sata hard drive?)
initrd /boot/initrd.img

and it works... now it's on to another battle... not hearing anything from a detected motherboard soundcard... :S

[dylunio]

I'm glad that I was able to help you setup grub