grub not configured properly after 8.10 install

[Lucio M Nicolosi]

Graham Watkins wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> Finally plucked up the courage to install 8.10 but didn't want to 
> install over my existing 8.04 installation. I have 2 hard drives: hd0 
> which formerly contained a now unwanted Mandriva system, and hd1 where 
> my 8.04 installation resides. I therefore installed 8.10 on hd0.
>
> Although the installation went through without incident and announced 
> that it was searching for other operating systems, when I rebooted the 
> grub menu showed 8.10 only.
>
> With the aid of a supergrub disk (with which I cannot claim any great 
> expertise) I have managed to boot 8.04 again although not to build a new 
> grub menu containing both OSs.
>
> For the time being I want 8.04 to be my main system as I have it 
> configured the way I like it - which took some time. 8.10 for now is 
> just to play with.
>
> Is there a quick and dirty (ideally GUI based) way of re-writing grub 
> which will permit me to choose between the 2 systems without continually 
> having to use a boot disk?
>
> I have tried using the 8.04 install disk to rewrite grub but ended up 
> just installing 8.04 over 8.10.
>
> Ideas anyone?
>
>   
With two versions of Ubuntu in the same machine you ended up with two 
/boot/grub/menu.lst files, one at each installation, only one of them 
active (the last one).

If these files are still standard you could easily edit the active one 
and copy/paste the parameters needed to boot the other installation 
(present in the "inactive" menu.lst) providing each disk is correctly 
identified (UUID, etc).

If they are not, you will probably have to man grub or grub-install or 
google grub for the shell commands and check the alternatives. (Or wait 
for the wiser guys.)

L.

-- 
Lucio M. Nicolosi, Eng.
São Paulo - Brazil

email: lmnicolosi at gmail.com
phone: 55 11 8272 6512

Linux Registered User #481505
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