What determines where GRUB is installed?

[Clive Menzies]

On (08/02/07 03:45), mtyoung wrote:
> I have 3 hard drives on my system.
> 
> Drive 0    ATA           20GB with an old Ubuntu 6.04 system, and, I 
> believe, my original Grub.
> Drive 1    SATA 2    200GB with a freshly installed LinuxMint 2.1
> Drive 2    SATA 1    160GB with an old Windows XP system, and I believe, 
> my new Grub.
> 
> When I originally installed Ubuntu, I'm pretty sure Grub was installed 
> on the same drive, because changing the boot sequence in BIOS setup 
> determines whether or not I see Grub during a boot.
> 
> When I installed LinuxMint I disconnected the Ubuntu 20GB drive, to 
> prevent any chance of it being effected.
> 
> If the SATA200GB with LinuxMint is first in the boot sequence, I get an 
> error which says that no operating system can be found.
> 
> When I set the SATA160GB with XP as first in the boot sequence I get the 
> new Grub menu, and can choose to boot XP or LinuxMint.
> 
> When I set the ATA20GB with Ubuntu as first in the boot sequence I get 
> the original Grub menu, and can choose to boot Ubuntu or XP. If I choose 
> XP there is a quick flash of text which I don't remember every seeing 
> before. Almost as if the old Grub sees the new Grub and then skips past 
> it. But, to clarify, I can't read the text fast enough to really tell 
> anything, so its a guess.
> 
> I did change the physical drive connections when I installed the 
> SATA200GB drive (because I had problems with SATA 2 working with by 
> chipset) and this was between the times I installed Ubuntu 6.04 and 
> LinuxMint 2.1.
> 
> So, what determines the drive that Grub is installed on? Is it the first 
> drive in the boot sequence, or first in the BIOS connection order 
> (forgot what that's called at the moment), or is it strictly a function 
> of the installer, and LinuxMint is just different for no good reason?
> 
> I have an image backup for the XP drive, so I can restore it, but how do 
> I force Grub to install where I want it?

There was a thread at the end of January on the list 'Dual boot, but
with two Linuxes' which will help.  From Ubuntu do:

$ sudo grub-install /dev/sda (or whichever) and it should pick up all
the systems on the box.  Failing that, you can then edit
/boot/grub/menu.lst manually.

Regards

Clive

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