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I recently started two threads:
The first dealt with trying to boot off my CD Writer. In the end I decided to get a boot image for a floppy that was smarter then BIOS. Then a “quick question” relating to the kernel location and got everything working properly.

Don’t ask me how but I installed the boot onto both my hard rive and my floppy even though I only remember telling it fd0. Maybe it was supposed to go on the HD as well?

Good news: I have a floppy that will boot a CD.
Bad news: Like I said, that boot image made it on my HD!

Sense I did not think I would need to, I never changed lilo to hda1 (my /boot). I have, however booted knoppix and changed my lilo.

Anyway, I made a backup labeled sbm-orig.dat, and I see the file right now on knoppix

I have tried loading the previous MRB in the boot loader but it just turns says GRUB and stands there.

I did, I guess, install FreeBSD though. Now I kndof wish I told it to create a boot loader -- to overwrite smartbootmanager. BTW, my FC3 disk crashes.

So…how do I get GRUB back?

I'm guessing you chose "yes" when sbm asked if you wanted to "save changes"? Pick "no" next time .

I have not used Fedora C3, but if I remember Fedora rightly if you boot the first install CD, then it should give you the option to boot a rescue system?? If it gives you that option, then the rescue system will likely give you an option to "reinstall the bootloader".

If that option is not there, or for some reason doesn't work, then you would probably want to reinstall grub while running the Fedora you already installed. To do that I would make use of this: (and prepare to get your feet wet)
http://www.tux.org/pub/people/kent-r...looplinux/rip/
It will boot up into a basic grub bootloader with lots of helps. From within that loader you should be able to jury-rig a boot of your Fedora install.

Once booted, then open up a terminal and type at the command-line for the grub manual and information on reinstalling it.

Of course, you may find it easier just to reinstall Fedora.

EDIT: Big idea... I bet choosing the "upgrade" option might also cause Fedora to reinstall grub without all the added wait and hassle. I've actually used "upgrade" several times with Mandrake for that very reason -- to fix my fouled bootloaders.

Looking back over your post I noticed that you made a copy of your original grub mbr.
It just occured to me (if I remember correctly) that the RIP disk I linked to should have a tool on it for reinserting saved mbr's. If you haven't found it already, then fyi. Sorry I didn't think of that last night.

Great, thanks alot!

I managed to install the latest grub when booted into FC3, and ran grub-install. It's awsome because my 'image' and everything was already in the dir, so I think all it did was install the latest GRUB files, then make GRUB boot instead of SBM, which still has all of its files there.

This is in my bookmarks though, because having a backup bootloader (esp with lots of help built in) could come in handy!

I don't have FreeBSD able to boot though. The install never asked for the other two CDs anyway, so it only has the software (i guess) that was on the boot CD. For this reason I'm just going to reinstall it and see if it'll make any settings for me to boot into it.

At least I got GRUB back though, and with the original settings as well.

If you want to boot FreeBSD, make for it an entry in menu.lst. Like this:

title FreeBSD
root (hd0,x,a)
chainloader +1

x=partition number where it's installed