boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

[dochawk]

Having gone nuts over the "dumbed down" interface after upgrading one of the kids' machines to 8.10, I clumsily tried to force some files back down. Not surprisingly, it all backfired.

Anyway, I now have a machine that can't boot off of a cd (though she was able to watch DVD's with it), but still has a functioning Grub with seeral kernels, and can boot into XP.

I'm thinking that I may be able to use Grub and a kernel from the hard drive to boot into the installation CD--but how do I specify whereer on the file system it is?

FWIW, during attempted boot from the hard drie, it fails w:

Bein: Running /scripts/init-bottom
Done.file or directory
Target file system doesn't have /sbin/init.
/sbin/sh: single: no such file or directory
[ 474.885938] Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!

[dibl]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

Qqmike is far more knowledgeable about grub than me, but AFAIK it only boots hard drives.

Does that optical drive not boot because it isn't set first in BIOS? If it works well enough to watch DVDs, it should boot a Live CD.

[dochawk]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

No, the drive is the first in the bios; I moed it there.

I'd been surprised to see her watching the moie, as I thought the drive didn't work at all. It hasn't been able to boot a cd for a while, although I think it can read them.

I suppose another possibility would be a root file system on a usb drive if I can find one to download.

Or a program that lets xp boot into the kubuntu install disk.

Or a pair that let me recoer /home, and then some equivalent of dd to blast an initial bootable file system?

hawk

[jglen490]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

Being able to read a DVD with a program to watch a movie, of course, isn't the same as having the DVD/CD drive set as the first bootable drive in the BIOS settings. A good test might be to see if any other bootable CD or DVD would try to boot from a cold start. If not, then it's entirely likely that the CD/DVD drive is no longer set as the first bootable device, in the BIOS's viewpoint.

[dochawk]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

I understand that. (very well, in fact .

The very first thing I did was move the cd to the first bootable drive. This drive has failed to boot from CD for months; it isn't something new or unexpected.

hawk

[toad]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

Have you got access to a functioning Kubuntu box? If so, you can make your own bootable usb install stick using usb-creator. It is available for both 8.04 and 8.10.

HTH

[dochawk]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

Yes, I have one still on 8.04. I'm 500 miles away at the moment, though--is that a package?

Hmm, is there an easy way to figure out what device the usb stick will come up as on the laptop?

thanks

hawk

[toad]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

Yep, it usb-creator is a package. It is in the repos for 8.10 and there is the developer's launchpad repo for 8.04 (just search for usb-creator in the ubuntu forums, I also mentioned it in this forum elsewhere, but you may as well get it from the horse's mouth).

Hmm, is there an easy way to figure out what device the usb stick will come up as on the laptop?

I don't quite get that. Here my attempt at an answer: If it is a half way modern laptop (not older than 7 or 8 years) it should be able to boot from USB devices, just plug it in, turn your laptop on and press the magic button to see your boot menu. The magic button is usually different for each laptop of course, but you will find it in your documentation.

[dochawk]

Re: boot from hard drive's grub to installation CD?

This is an acer 5000; USB boot isn't an option in the boot order. It's a bit over three years old. (But I'll never buy another acer; they don't honor the warranty).

I don't remember linux device naming offhand (I don't have one with me) , but I assume that it is something like /dev/usb0 or /dev/ad1. I will need to use the kernel & grub on the hard disk, so I'll need to figure this out to use .

this.awk
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