Linux Mint Forums

One thing I miss from Mepis is the ability to reinstall the bootloader. Often, when trying out a new distro it will install its own bootloader, and while it detects Mint and will start it up fine, I always go back to Mint and the newer bootloader is then crippled beause the new distro is gone so there's no way to edit it.

I know that one way around this is to install it in the /root directory instead of the MBR, but often I come across distros that don't ask where to install it: it automatically installs to the MBR. A simple Mint tool to restore it would be very helpful.

Yeah please, I BEG you to add such a tool! I'm so noob that sometimes I have to reinstall another copy of Mint just to have it fix my messed up GRUB...

kanishka wrote:Yeah please, I BEG you to add such a tool! I'm so noob that sometimes I have to reinstall another copy of Mint just to have it fix my messed up GRUB...

You should be able to install it from the Live CD.

Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall any option for reinstalling grub all by itself. Where is it?

For all of you who do need to do this right now, it's not that hard.

Just put in your live CD, boot from it, open the terminal, and put in these commands;
Give it your password...


This should show you all your partitions that have some form of grub on them. Find out which one is the one with the linux mint you want to repair on it, and now;


replacing, of course, the ?'s with the number that tells the partition on what hard drive (from the list you just got). Now,
That should do it... Works perfectly for me.

I'll try it but, what I want is something that is installed right along with the rest of Mint. So to use the tool there is no need to use the Live-CD: as long as I can get into Mint, I could reinstall grub with just a couple of mouse clicks. I hate to compare distros, but Mepis has this tool *both* on the CD AND in the regular installation. It's the one (and only) thing I miss about Mepis.

locutus,

You can also do what xvedejas said from the Mint install if you can get into it. It really isn't that difficult once you have done it a few times.

root tells the grub kernel where the menu.lst is.

setup tells where to install the grub kernel.

If you want to learn more about grub and chainloading look in the link below.

http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopi ... 3&start=30

Fred

Fred wrote:You can also do what xvedejas said from the Mint install if you can get into it. It really isn't that difficult once you have done it a few times.

But that's my point: it should be obvious to any newby how to do it, not have to ask another experienced user and then do "it a few times" before you become comfortable with it.

When your grub is borked is the time you want/need an answer immediately, not have to spend hours searching thru the CD trying to figure it out for the first time, or to ask in the forums and patiently wait for a reply which, depending on the day of the week and hour of the day, could take hours to get.

locutus,

You have a valid point. I wouldn't debate that.

My point was, that like my Daddy used to tell me, "anything you know is easy and anything you don't know is hard." A GUI can be a good learning aid, but we should guard against becoming dependent on it and using it as an excuse not to learn.

Fred

not sure if this is relevant - but could this be the reason I could not install or run live Cd of celena once I installed Daryna on a brend new laptop - I keep getting some initd error or some such thing? is it s newer linux kernel issue or this grub thing you guys are talking about - can't boot no matter what ---- but Daryna works no problems...

GrayWizardLinux,

No, this should have nothing to do with running a live cd. If the live cd was working ok before you installed Mint 4 then it sounds as if either the boot order in the bios got changed somehow or the cd went bad on you.

Fred

If it's a brand new laptop and you can't even run the live CD then you should check your BIOS and change the boot order to CD 1st, hard drive 2nd. If you've never done that before post back and I (or Fred) can give more detailed instructions.
Doug.

I chnaged the boot order to get daryna installed - it was my understanding that it should remain the same until i change it to something else. It starts to recognize the cd but fails - it must be the CD but both CD's I burned act the same. I never had issues with any other Mint CD I burned ever. weird eh?

I have daryna on here and it works overall so no big deeal - just was trying to figure out what the problem was that I had with the CD's.

Thanks.