Problem with Grub on someone eles hard Drive.

[Jay Stapleton]

How to modify the filesystem as if you were logged in:
1 -Mount the drive in your environment
`mnt /dev/hdaX /mnt`

2 - chroot!
`cd /mnt/`
`chroot /mnt`

Now it looks to the shell as if /mnt is /
edit and run grub, and Bob's your uncle.

To get out of the chroot, type "exit"

Not that if you have a seperate /boot partition, that will need to be
mounted in it's proper spot within the chroot environment.

-Jay.

On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 22:34 -0500, Alfred wrote:
> The person that owned the Drive, changed his mind, and wanted it wiped
> so he could put Win 98SE on it. He uses the computer only to play games.
> Up until recently, he was using 7.04 a lot more than Win 98SE. I don't
> have a spare 20-40 Gig Hard Drive right now to put 7.10 on, so I guess
> the problem is solved for now, although it would be nice to know how to
> do this.
> 
> Everything you said so far is correct, except that I was not able to
> make new files because I did not have the Root access from 7,04. I just
> mounted that Drive, to see if it was working. The Drive that had Windows
> on it did not spin-up. That's two drives Failed in one week. They don't
> seem to last that long, 3 years, almost to the day! Some drives I've had
> that were smaller I got seven years out of.
> 
> I solved the problem on my Confuser just a day or two earlier. The
> person that owns the drive is sort of lost when he does not have a
> computer, he is at a loss for what to do. I'm not sure I still have a
> Windows Start Disk, to format the drive with. I had a problem with
> G-parted, doing FAT 32. So It might still be Ubuntu 7.10 as this is
> easier for me. I leave it to him to put Windblows on there, I don't do
> that stuff!
> 
> Alfred!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Mathenge <mathenge at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community
> <ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
> To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
> Subject: Re: Problem with Grub on someone eles hard Drive.
> Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 19:33:00 -0500
> 
> I'm not sure that I understand your approach. You are saying that you've
> attached a second drive (which had a copy of Ubuntu 7.04) to your
> computer (running Ubuntu 7.10) and were able to mount it. So, you have
> storage located at, say, /media/disk2. 
> 
> You are able to navigate the filesystem. You are able to open existing
> files. You are able to create new files.
> 
> You then switch to /media/disk2/boot/grub and try to make changes to
> menu.lst but you are unable. 
> 
> Have you checked the ownership and permissions on that file? What do
> they look like?
> 
> Andrew.
> 
> On Dec 18, 2007 7:02 PM, Alfred <alfred.s at nexicom.net> wrote: 
>         Hi:
>         
>         Yesterday, I learnt how to re-write a Grub Script on my Computer
>         because
>         one of my Hard drives failed, and booting up caused an Error. So
>         I 
>         Opened up my Terminal and did a sudo su - entered my Password.
>         then I CD
>         ed to /boot/grub and made the changes and then saved the changes
>         that I
>         made, getting rid of the lines that referred to the OS on the
>         hard drive 
>         that failed.
>         
>         Today a Hard drive in another Computer here stopped working, and
>         Grub
>         was Expecting to see Windows on the C Drive, but now it is not
>         there. So
>         the Drive that was the Slave drive is now the master Drive, and
>         the 
>         Slave Drive is gone. We can't load Ubuntu 7.04 on this computer
>         anymore
>         because there is an error at bootup. I put that Drive on my
>         Computer and
>         was able to get into it with my 7.10. How ever the Password for
>         that 
>         Drive is different than my Password. I need to be the Root for
>         7.04 to
>         make the changes to Grub. Problem is on my Machine I am the root
>         for
>         7.10, and so don't have permission to make changes to the 7.04
>         Drive, 
>         and then save them to the /boot/Grub/ folder in 7.04.
>         
>         Anyone there know how to become the r00t in 7.04 when it is
>         attached to
>         a 7.10 Computer? I know Passwd that is when you have lost the
>         password
>         allows you to gain entry as root, so that you can get a new
>         password. Or 
>         I could just Wipe the drive, and put 7.10 on it in this other
>         Computer.
>         
>         Or I could try to boot from that Drive on my Computer, but I
>         have
>         different Video components.
>         
>         Any suggestions?
>         
>         Alfred!
>         
>         
>         --
>         ubuntu-ca mailing list
>         ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com
>         https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-ca
> 
> 
>