Okay, I'll try to cut to the chase on this one otherwise it's a long story. I dual boot Mandriva 2006 and Ubuntu on hard drives 1 and 2 respectively. Due to me screwing around with file permissions/ownership whilst in Ubuntu I managed to render my Mandriva partition on my first hard drive inoperable, as I could not boot into it! Anyway, I eventually managed to fully restore the system because I had made a .tgz backup of the whole system! Great, I thought. However, and I don't know how, I have somehow managed to knock-out the bootloader menu, that on start-up, allows me to boot into either Mandriva or Ubuntu. When I power-up the PC now – it boots straight into Mandriva – in other words, the bootloader menu has completely disappeared! Can anyone help me out on how to restore the bootloader option menu so that I can boot into either OS? I'm really stuck here as I have a lot of good stuff on Ubuntu, and have it set-up just how I want it (tweaks, etc). As a last resort, I'm thinking I could fully restore Unbuntu from an archive .tgz file that I backed up to a few days ago, but I'm wondering if this would fix the bootloader? Your help would really be appreciated, as I'm dreading another Ubuntu re-install to try to fix things (everything was working so well), and re-installing everytime something goes wrong is a bad way of fixing things - plus you learn nothing! Many thanks, David.
Thanks, Addis. I tried a procedure very similar to the one in the link you kindly provided for me. However, although at the end of the procedure I got a message saying: that 'grub' had successfuly been reinstalled - the end result was, that on reboot, my PC just booted straight back into Mandriva! Hmmmm, don't know what happened there. Anyway, the procedure in the link you gave me may work better, in that it might be slightly different. I shall compare both of them for future use. However, there is good news! Both distros are back in fully functionng order. This was not quiet the way I wanted to go about it but I completely reinstalled Unbuntu - then I fully restored the system from a 'backup.tgz' archive file that I created for Ubuntu a few days ago. I have to say that the restore was flawless - I also carried out the same procedure for my Mandriva partition and that restored equally successfully! It's nice when you find a backup procedure that works! Here's the link that I did my backups via: Howto: Backup and restore your system! - Ubuntu Forums Anyway, it was all a learning curve for a Linux newbie like me . Gradually, I'm learning stuff for myself and feeling more confident when things go pear-shaped. Thanks for your help. David.
I have just flawlessly, fully restored both my Mandriva and Ubuntu partitions using the method outlined in the link below. I just thought it might come in handy for any fellow Linux newbies that are a little apprehensive and unfamiliar with backups procedures (people like me). It's good to find something you know that works - both backup and restore were very easy to carry out. Howto: Backup and restore your system! - Ubuntu Forums EDIT: Ooops, meant to make this a separate post.
