GRUB is a great boot loader program, I love it to death. And I really loved the boot loader that SuSE 9.1 came with, it made installing GRUB an ease. But now I'm using SimplyMEPHIS, is there boot loader application alternative for this linux os for GRUB? and is there any GRUB installer program I can download for the Windows OS to allows me to install GRUB to the MBR?

I'm not really sure what your meaning to ask, but here's how to get grub working with Windows (if that's what you're getting at).

If grub is installed you can have it install itself in the MBR by doing the following:

shell$ grub  # grub will startgrub> root (hd0,0)  # substitute with the correct disk and partition -- this should hold your kernelgrub> setup (hd0)   # this installs grub to the MBR of the specified drivegrub> quit

The first command root (hd0,0) tells grub where it should start from, grub can read linux filesystems but it cannot read ntfs (it can read fat32). I'm not sure if that covered what you're asking.

Edit: specified ntfs (as windows filesystem), grammar

[Edited by - Aly on May 10, 2005 12:03:56 PM]

I don't know about a generic application to configure GRUB, but it's not that hard to do yourself. You can just use a text editor to edit /boot/grub/menu.list and when you're done just run 'grub-install /dev/your-hard-drive' There should be tutorials for menu.list on the web, or there might be a man entry.

Is that what you were asking? If not, what specifically are you trying to do?

I know how to edit the menu.list file, but I can only can only do that in a linux shell.

But what I want is a program that I can set up GRUB within Windows, just in case something happens to my linux os. because I love GRUB and I want to make sure that is my default boot loader. Well the only thing that sucks about it is that it cannot boot a floppy or a CD.

I'm not sure if it is possible to run grub in windows (it can read fat32 but not ntfs), it might be possible to get it working if you have a fat32 partition and you do some cygwin trickery. My advice would be to make either a bootable grub floppy or cdrom. You can use either of these to fix a grub install (or even boot without having grub installed on the hard drive).

I'm pretty sure that I've seen a configuration where grub could boot a floppy using chain loading (similar to how it boots windows). Unfortunately I can't find any real information, just a vague feeling that it is possible.

Actually GRUB can read NTFS.
Else I wouldn't be able to boot up my Windows XP partition. It's formatted with NTFS.

I've seen a tutorial to install GRUB on top of a windows partition boot, but I know what I did with that link, but that can only be done from linux.

Quote: Original post by digital_phantom
Actually GRUB can read NTFS.
Else I wouldn't be able to boot up my Windows XP partition. It's formatted with NTFS.

I don't know enough about recent grub development to say that ntfs read support hasn't been added, but you can boot from an ntfs partition without being able to read from the filesystem. A typical setup for booting Windows is:

  rootnoverify (hd0,0)  makeactive  chainloader +1  boot

The chainloader command passes control -- it does not need to understand ntfs to do that, it just needs to be able to read the data from the partition. To load a linux kernel you would normally use the kernel command which actually does read from the filesystem. I hope that makes sense.