ok guys heres the deal. i have a dual boot xp rh9 laptop. it uses grub to do the switch. when i boot the machine, the grub gui doesnt appear, it just shows a black screen with the text GRUB in the corner with a blinking cursor and does nothing else. no key strokes do anything.

i have my rh9 discs here. can someone tell me how to reinstall grub? I have 3 unix assignments on this machine that are due on tuesday! i need to get this machine back going. please help.

to get into xp

rootnoverify (hd<tab>,<tab>)

The tabs will give you a list of hd0, hd1, etc... select the appropriate harddisk
the second tab after the comma will give you a list of partitions
select the one where xp resides
next give the command

chainloader +1
boot

To get into your linux

root (hd<tab>,<tab>)

select the appropriate disk and partition where your /boot resides
kernel /vmlinuz-<tab> root=LABEL=/ ro
initrd /initrd<tab>
boot

by now I am sure you know how to use tab ... select the most appropriate kernel and initrd files and boot.

wish i had some idea of what you were talking about. i have to admit im rather new. first unix class is only 2 weeks old at this point. i had put redhat on this machine during the summer to try it out , but cant say i got as advanced as you assume.

when you are presented with the

grub>

prompt, you can type in the comands in the previous post.

If you want to get into rescue mode, insert CD1 from the RH9 distribution. At the boot: prompt, type linux rescue
follow the instructions till you reach the command prompt #

here, type chroot /mnt/sysimage

this will get you into your original linux installation.

from here, you can type the command

grub-install /dev/hdx where hdx can be hda or hdb

Once grub-install exits, you can type exit and reboot.

something must really be screwed. when i get the GRUB followed by a cursor, i cant type anything. nothing there works.

i can get into the rescue. it did the first half you were talking about on its own. i tried the command grub-install /dev/hda but got the error: /sbin/grub: Not Found.

felt close this time. thanks for the advice

while in rescue mode, can you check whether the grub rpm exists

rpm -q grub

if you are able to run grub-install, the grub rpm should be installed... wonder why it does not find grub...

try to run grub from the rescue mode.

i was able to run grub from rescue. i do recall learning a bit about tabs so i tried to get into either os last night and it wasnt happening quickly so i bailed out for some sleep. ill play around some more right now.