Re: Recovering from GRUB effects of "garbled" install

[Arbiel Perlacremaz]

I may have misunderstood you. Reading again your call for help, you 
appear to want your HDD to be a single Windows booting machine. In that 
case, we are not going to keep Grub on its MBR, but to overwrite it with 
the Windows initial boot loader, the one your erroneously erased in 
installing your Ubuntu distribution on the USB stick.

You can go with various Windows solutions ; the one Keith McKenzie gave 
you is OK. Other are available if you google WIndows sites, but this is 
not my expertise. You also can go with a GNU/Linux tool, named 
boot-repair, whose official home page is  
https://launchpad.net/boot-repair. This tool can restore various Windows 
initial boot loaders (XP, Vista, Seven) into the MBR.

If you want to go that way, install that program into your USB stick 
Ubuntu distibutionn and run it. If you read a little bit of french, you 
will find sort of a user manual at that place : 
http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/boot-repair, which you will easily understand, 
as it shows screens of what to do.

Both ways you will overwrite grub and its references to your USB stick 
with a windows initial bootloader, and you will be able to boot your PC 
as before, without the need to connect your USB stick.

Now for your USB stick : you want Grub in its MBR, and your USB stick 
Ubuntu to be the default boot, and maybe your HDD Windows a second choice

To have Grub into its MBR, boot your PC from your USB stick Ubuntu
open a terminal and type

sudo blkid

to verify whether your USB stick will be /dev/sda or /dev/sdb, or 
/dev/sdc (I'm sure what it should be). Let's say it's /dev/sd?

then type

sudo grub-install /dev/sd?

This command will :
create a /boot boot-directory into your Ubuntu partition, a /boot/grub 
directory in it and fill the later with the necessary files for Grub to 
boot, but the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file, which is the configuration file 
which tells Grub how to construct its boot menu
install grub into your USB stick's MBR
make a link from your USB stick's Grub to /boot/grub

Now you have to create the /boot/grub/grub.cfg by running the command

sudo grub-mkconfig

This command will use grub options from /etc/default/grub, where you 
will find all necessary information to fix these options accordingly to 
what you want to do. You will be able to define the default boot system 
(your Ubuntu) and whether or not you want Windows as a second choice or 
not (there is an option whose name contains os-prober to say where other 
oses are to be probed -included into the menu -  or not -discarded from 
it -). So please, review this file and fix the options before running 
the grub-mkconfig command.

Doing all that you will have a bootable USB stick.

I hope all this is clear.

However, in this way of booting Ubuntu, the boot process will be slow. 
If you are interested, I can help you booting a HDD residing Ubuntu form 
your USB stick, without any Grub into the HDD MBR. Just ask me.

Arbiel

Le 16/03/2012 18:33, Richard Owlett a écrit :
> Arbiel Perlacremaz wrote:
> > When you say Grub, do you mean Grub2.
>
> Yes.
>
>
> > In which case I can help, however
> > in a couple of hours, as I've got to go.
>
> Thank you. Timing is not critical as I've been using another machine 
> until I get that one straightened out.
>
> > The idea is to have a grub config on your hard disk which boots by
> > default your windows system, and get rid of any reference to the USB
> > stick, and then to install Grub on the MBR of your USB sitck, and have,
> > for example, your GNU/Linux distro as the default option.
>
> That sounds like what I thought should be possible.
>
>
> > See you later.
> >
> > Arbiel
> >
> > Le 16/03/2012 16:31, Richard Owlett a écrit :
> > > I took the prompts issued by the installer included on "live" edition
> > > of Ubuntu 10.10 *TOO* literally. I was working on a Windows machine on
> > > which I had no intention whatsoever to have any Linux distro 
> > > whatsoever.
> > >
> > > I thought I was installing everything to a USB stick. It accepted me
> > > designating the stick as target. When asked if the whole device was to
> > > be used I responded affirmatively. I expected a Linux install on the
> > > USB stick that I could run on any machine that could boot to a USB
> > > device (all my hardware has the ability).
> > >
> > > What I _got_ however was Ubuntu on the USB stick and GRUB 1.99 on my
> > > hard drive. This could have been an annoyance only. *EXCEPT* GRUB has
> > > evidently been configured to default to Ubuntu with the side effect of
> > > failing to boot any OS if the USB stick is not inserted at boot time.
> > >
> > > Questions:
> > > 1. Can I get rid of GRUB completely from my hard drive?
> > > 2. Failing that, can I have the existing WinXP be the default OS.
> > > Related, I must get rid of requirement that the USB stick be present.
> > >
> > > I raised the question on a Ubuntu forum and got a confused mishmash of
> > > responses. A primary problem was responders ignoring differences
> > > between GRUB Legacy and GRUB2.
> > >
> > > HELP ;/
> > > Though a Linux newbie I'm not scared of the command line as I date
> > > back to before CPM-80.
> > >
> > > TIA
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Help-grub mailing list
> > > address@hidden
> > > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-grub