Re: Bug#185770: grub: incompatible with Windows 2000 NTFS when installed on MBR

[Jason Thomas]

grub-install does not do what you claim, as far as I know.

It does the same thing that you are suggesting to do as a work around.

# Now perform the installation.
$grub_shell --batch --device-map=$device_map <<EOF >$log_file
root $root_drive
setup $force_lba --stage2=$grubdir/stage2 --prefix=$grub_prefix
$install_drive
quit
EOF


On Thu, Mar 27, 2003 at 01:26:54PM -0600, Raj Manandhar wrote:
> I don't think that the Debian package should install the Stage 1.5 in
> the "unused" sectors after the MBR. Doing this is OK if the machine is
> a pure Debian or other Linux system (grub-install should probably ask
> the user to find out), but otherwise it is not safe enough.
> 
> In the meantime, here's a patch to the documentation. I'm not
> knowledgeable about the Texinfo format so please check to see if I've
> got it just right. I got the Texinfo source from the 0.93 distribution
> rather than the Debian package, hopefully there isn't a significant
> difference in the patched context.
> 
> --- README.Debian~    Thu Mar 27 13:09:18 2003
> +++ README.Debian     Thu Mar 27 13:17:34 2003
> @@ -25,7 +25,8 @@
>     or if /boot is a separate partition
>     grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/hda
>  
> -   using in place of /dev/hda the device that you boot from
> +   using in place of /dev/hda the device that you boot from. See the
> +   section below if you are using Windows.
>  
>  2) update-grub which will create a menu.lst for you if one does not exist
>     or manually create one, and skip to step 4
> @@ -92,4 +93,19 @@
>  not a big problem, because GRUB can boot it via /boot/loader for now.
>  
>  If you're willing to give help to us, please contact us."
> +
> +Coexisting with Microsoft Windows
> +---------------------------------
> +The default grub installation uses some normally unused sectors after
> +the MBR. This causes problems for some Windows users, since that OS or
> +its applications may try to use the same sectors. In that case, remove
> +the Stage 1.5 files from /boot/grub and don't use grub-install.
> +Instead,
> +
> +grub
> +root (hd0,1)
> +setup (hd0)
> +
> +adjusting the disk and partition names for your setup (see the GRUB
> +docs for the naming convention).
> --- docs/grub.texi~   Mon Dec  2 16:35:28 2002
> +++ docs/grub.texi    Thu Mar 27 13:13:48 2003
> @@ -3020,6 +3020,19 @@
>  The error numbers correspond to the errors reported by Stage
>  2. @xref{Stage2 errors}.
>  
> +If the Stage 1.5 code is damaged by being overwritten, then no
> +specific error might be printed. Instead, you will see the Stage 1
> +print ``Loading stage1.5...'' and a lockup or reboot will follow. This
> +overwriting sometimes happens if you store the Stage 1.5 after the MBR
> +using @command{embed} (or @command{setup} or @command{grub-install},
> +which can call @command{embed}), and you boot Windows. The solution is
> +to remove the Stage 1.5 image from the GRUB directory before running
> address@hidden Note that @command{grub-install} will restore the
> +Stage 1.5 and reinstall it after the MBR, so it should be edited or
> +not be used. Without Stage 1.5, you must be careful not to change the
> +Stage 2 file, since its location is stored as a block list in the
> +Stage 1.
> +
>  
>  @node Stage2 errors
>  @section Errors reported by the Stage 2

-- 
Jason Thomas                           Phone:  +61 2 6257 7111
Unix System Administrator              Fax:    +61 2 6257 7311
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