Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with bootloader

Obsolete hardware + Linux = fail?

caution live frogs — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:56:47 -0800

Attention Linux gurus of MeFi: Attempting to set up an old Dell Latitude CS laptop as a Linux system (Xubuntu) for a coworker. Massive installation headaches ensue thanks to missing hardware. Any suggestions? The laptop is barely capable of doing much but all my friend wants is something she can use to browse the web. Basically a stone-age netbook.

The laptop was picked up used, and has no internal floppy drive, no internal CD drive. External drives are missing. It does have a Xircom 10/100 pcmcia card, but it refuses to netboot using that card even if "Cardbus Ethernet" is selected in BIOS as a boot device. One USB port, but won't boot from that either.

System was running Win2K, so I was able to use a Windows-based bootloader to get the machine to restart and begin installing Xubuntu over the network. All went fine until the end - machine failed to install GRUB. Tried LILO. Fail. Tried LILO on the primary partition instead of MBR. Fail. Tried reformatting the drive (which wiped out the Windows partition) and reinstalling GRUB and LILO. Fail.

I'm currently reinstalling the base system in hopes that the reformatting screwed things up - but not really confident.

So here's where I need help: I now have a machine that is running Linux from the install image, but I am afraid to reboot it as I have no backup method of starting it should it fail.

1 - what might be causing GRUB and LILO to fail? My initial thought was (a) the existing Windows partitions, which is why I repartitioned the drive, or (b) some weirdness with the disk itself (SCSI HDD) that is stopping GRUB from going to the MBR (but why won't LILO install on the / partition itself?)

2 - Any way for me to run the GRUB install manually, rather than using the install menu to do it? I am wondering if the installer is trying to send it to a drive that doesn't exist.

3 - If all else fails and I end up with a brick on my hands, should I be able to pull the drive out and fix the problem by plugging it in to another system using an external drive enclosure? (And if so, how do I do this without screwing up the bootloader on the system on which I do the repair?)

This makes me mad. I agreed to do the job before realizing that the damn computer didn't even have a floppy drive. I did a bare metal to network file server install in under 2 hours last weekend for my neighbors, and up until today was feeling like I knew what I was doing, but this one is reminding me just how weak my Linux skills are.

An iPhone 3G unlock around the corner for current firmware?

letitrain — Sun, 24 May 2009 15:54:07 -0800

I bought an almost new iPhone 3G to unlock to use on T-Mobile. It has the latest modem firmware (2.30.03) and bootloader, so (I believe) there is not currently an unlock available. My question: has there been any indication from the iPhone Dev Team that an unlock is forthcoming for recently sold iPhones with current firmware versions? If I understand the situation correctly, the yellowsn0w unlock only works for 3G iPhones with modem and bootloader firmware from the Fall of 2008 and older. If there have been indications of an unlock forthcoming for the latest firmwares, I'd like to hang on to the iPhone. If not, I'd probably be better off selling it on eBay.

Please do not lecture me on the legality or morality of unlocking or jailbreaking my iPhone. Thank you!

Critical: How to fix MBR on Ubuntu/Vista dual-boot laptop?

meta.mark — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:45:22 -0800

How to I re-install, configure, or set the MBR on my laptop? I have a Sony VAIO VGN N series laptop. I recently partitioned and installed Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) successfully. Previously I had a Ubuntu/Vista dual boot using the default Ubuntu GRUB that was automatically installed during the setup. But I used EasyBCD in Vista and accidentally uninstalled the Vista Bootloader MBR. Now when I start up my computer all I get is something like "NTLDR not found Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart." In other words I have neither the Ubuntu GRUB or Vista Bootloader MBR working. How do I fix this so I can go back to dual-booting both systems? Please help!

Reinstall Mac OS on G3 iMac after installing Linux?

AmbroseChapel — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:50:24 -0800

Reinstall Mac OS on G3 iMac after installing Linux? I have an old 333MHz G3 iMac (the first generation of the "fruity colours" model).

I installed YellowDog Linux on it. No dual-boot, just linux.

Now I'd like to return it to use with Mac OS X or even OS 9 and I can't seem to do so.

I can boot from the installer disks OK, but the OS X installer disk thinks for a while then gives me a forbidden/ghostbusters symbol, and the OS 9 installer just gives me a mouse and a blank screen.

Presumably they don't recognise the existence of the HD because it's not formatted the right way? So what can I do to reformat the disk in HFS, or whatever I would need for the installers to acknowledge the existence of that enormous 6GB drive?

Help me boot into windows with a broken bootloader and no installation media...

handee — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:52:06 -0800

I've messed up my boot loader. I have a (working, legal) XP installation, but it won't boot, and I don't have any Windows installation media. How can I fix it? Linux, Windows and general stupidity feature in the creation of the problem, and getting the computer ready to give away in time for Christmas is the aim. I'm giving my old laptop away at Xmas. The recipient is unlikely to want the dual-boot-ness, so I had two tasks on my hands.

1. Change the boot-loader (grub)
2. Reformat /dev/hda3 from ext3 to something Windows can see.

But Dr Stupid here did the tasks in the wrong order, and using fdisk I f-ed the disk before dealing with grub. Grub now gives me error 17 (cannot recognise filesystem). So I can't boot into Windows or.

All the recovery software is all on the hard disk already and despite having a legal copy of XP I don't have any media (cheers, PC World). All I have to do to access the recovery software is to press F10 during boot to use it. Except that won't work, 'cause grub intercepts the boot process.

So how can I overwrite the grub bootloader in order to boot directly into Windows, bypassing all grubbiness?

I have installation and livecd versions of ubuntu, and am assuming that if I boot into XP once, I should be able to tell it to overwrite the MBR itself (bonus question - once in XP, how do I do this?).

Hard drive diagnostic / repair?

Daddio — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 14:45:17 -0800

My WinXP system won't boot. Knoppix comes up fine, and complains that it can't read the partition table. I've got The Ultimate Boot CD; does anyone have a methodology for making things right, or at least recovering whatever I can from the hard drive?