SOLUTION: somehow I ended up with 'makeactive' as a parameter in the windows boot entry in menu.1st, this caused it to mark that partition with the boot flag instead of the grub partition. Oops.
Everytime I boot windows from grub it resets the boot flag so that the windows partition is flagged 'boot' and the actual boot partition with grub is not!
This means it boots to windows no matter what from then on, unless I boot from cd and switch it back with gparted! ACK!
Other than being paranoid and sure that gates paid some grub coder off to slip this in to either force me back to windows or just piss me off enough I throw my computer out the window - punishing me for even thinking of leaving his empire - what can I do?
Any ideas?
Kinda funny. I'm sure it is something inside windows doing it. Oh, it is windows ME, as in
boot ME! ME! not linux, MEEEE! I am the os here! Not that little guy! How DARE you try and leave!
an os with a touchy ego problem... only from ms, and no doubt called a 'feature'
However, all it does is make me SURE I'm not going to boot windows except in emergencies, so the evil plan backfired. Still, I'd like to solve the problem.
I'm also unable to get grub to boot linux at all... always get a file not found, but doesn't say what file. I've put copies of vmlinuz and initrd inside /boot (as well as sticking them on the linux partition just in case it is looking there, and along side boot at the root of the boot partition) but no go. Still, I will tweak with it before actually asking for help.
Fitzhugh
booting windows via grub resets boot flag?? (SOLVED)
booting windows via grub resets boot flag?? (SOLVED)
Last edited by fitzhugh on Tue 04 Jul 2006, 00:03, edited 1 time in total.
I am totally confused by your post.
a) why do you set the boot flag to another partition? My computer has the boot flag in the windows partition and It boots to GRUB, no problem.
b) Grub has two parts:
- The boot loader: This goes into the HDD MBR unless you have another boot loader.
- The stage files: This goes into an actual partition usually under a folder called /boot/grub
as such the installation of grub has three steps
1. Copy the Grub stage files to the /boot/grub folder
2. Modify/Create the grub.conf (menu.lst) with the appropriate parameters for windows and puppy.
3. Install Grub to the MBR.
I know that you can install the bootloader portion of Grub to the partition MBR instead of the HDD MBR, but you only do that if you understand what you are doing. If you don't, then install it to the HDD MBR.
a) why do you set the boot flag to another partition? My computer has the boot flag in the windows partition and It boots to GRUB, no problem.
b) Grub has two parts:
- The boot loader: This goes into the HDD MBR unless you have another boot loader.
- The stage files: This goes into an actual partition usually under a folder called /boot/grub
as such the installation of grub has three steps
1. Copy the Grub stage files to the /boot/grub folder
2. Modify/Create the grub.conf (menu.lst) with the appropriate parameters for windows and puppy.
3. Install Grub to the MBR.
I know that you can install the bootloader portion of Grub to the partition MBR instead of the HDD MBR, but you only do that if you understand what you are doing. If you don't, then install it to the HDD MBR.
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[url]http://www.kwlug.org/blog/48[/url] Covering my Linux How-to
I suspect this is my problem...
My guess, from reading what you wrote, is that this is entirely bypassed if I install it to the HDD MBR instead of the partition. I'll try that (after I fix the other uglies with kernel panic).
I installed it to the partition instead as that was recommended on some other forum and a few pages that I saw when searching for how to do this in the first place. I'd also searched on flags and read that it chooses which to boot from via the flag, just the behavior I see currently when it ignores the boot partition containing grub and boots straight to windows when the flag is set there, or to the boot partition w/ grub when the flag is there. For some reason booting to windows moves the flag to the windows partition.I know that you can install the bootloader portion of Grub to the partition MBR instead of the HDD MBR, but you only do that if you understand what you are doing. If you don't, then install it to the HDD MBR.
My guess, from reading what you wrote, is that this is entirely bypassed if I install it to the HDD MBR instead of the partition. I'll try that (after I fix the other uglies with kernel panic).