Triple boot - Ubuntu Feisty (7.04) Dapper (6.06) and Windows XP (P4)

[Eric Dunbar]

On 24/03/07, Loïc Martin <loic.martin3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Eric Dunbar a écrit :
> > Hello all:
> >
> > I've "lost" my "main" Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) install from the Grub boot
> > menu. I have two HDs, one for Windows XP and one for Ubuntu.
> >
> > My Ubuntu 6.06 was set up with a /boot partition. My Ubuntu 7.04 was
> > not (just /).
> >
> > When I set up my current configuration* I left 7.8 GB free on my
> > Ubuntu disk for experimental OSes. I've wanted to see what Ubuntu 7.04
> > would look like so I installed it into that free 7.8 GB partition.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I didn't realise that grub doesn't automagically handle
> > multiple Linux OSes gracefully (I come from the PPC world where yaboot
> > handles OSes differently). I've lost access to my Ubuntu 6.06
> > partition and would like to regain it _and_ retain easy access to
> > Ubuntu 7.04 as well, if at all possible.
> >
> > Can anyone suggest a Howto or link or wiki where I can go for further
> > assistance in setting grub up so that it can handle my two Linuxes
> > without excluding one (I haven't gotten anywhere yet with Google)? I'm
> > scouring the man pages for grub but haven't found out how to specify a
> > "chain loader" for a linux (I figure that's what I need to do).
> >
> > Thanks, Eric.
> >
> > *Two HDs:
> > sdb = 20 GB
> > /dev/sdb1 Windows XP
> >
> > sda = ~250 GB
> > /dev/sda2 19 GB Ubuntu 6.06
> > /dev/sda3 202 GB ext3 formatted "Virtual Machine" partition (contains
> > VMs for VMware)
> > /dev/sda6 7.8 GB free
> >
> > (plus, some other partitions like /dev/sda1 89 MB for /boot for Ubuntu
> > 6.06 and /dev/sda5 1.5 GB for /swap)
> >
> I've been booting 4 versions of Ubuntu for quite a while, so I don't
> think grub can't handle it.
>
> New versions of Ubuntu always detect old versions' kernels and set them
> for grub.
>
> If it didn't work, you can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst (make a copy first)
> then you can reinstall grub with something like grub-install (man
> grub-install or info grub-install for documentation, else google it)
> I don't do that usually, so I can't be of more help. Be sure to check
> which disk you want to put grub on, since you have 2 of them. It should
> be the one your bios boots on.

Hi Loic, I figured that grub could do it but I wasn't sure how.

How do you set up your machine to have four different installs?

One thread I found suggested having a grub installed on the /boot for
each install and then installing a grub into the MBR that redirects to
the grub for each install. This is ideally what I would like to have
(that way it avoids problems with automatic updates interfering with
the menu.lst file).

I'm not sure how I tell grub to install into the mbr and to make sure
it installs the relevant binary into each install.

I presume that currently I have only _one_ instance of the grub binary
on my machine in the mbr (of the 250 GB HD... the first (sda) HD) that
points to the /boot/grub/menu.lst of the Ubuntu 7.04 install??

Anyway, I'm going to play with supergrub and see if I can get
temporary access to the other partition. After that I'll see if I can
do a two-stage grub set-up.

Eric.