Description of problem: I have an existing Fedora Core 1 (FC1) installation on my hard drive. When installing Fedora Core 2 Test 2 (FC2T2) from ftp (since hard drive install did not work- already reported), I checked the "no boot loader" option expecting that the existing boot loader would not be affected. After successful installation and removal of the boot.iso CD, the reboot stopped with a grub> prompt. I assume that the boot loader on /dev/hda has been replaced with a new one pointing to /boot, but since I checked "no boot loader" the /boot/grub/menu.lst file was not created. I verified that by booting in "rescue mode" with the boot.iso CD, selecting the FC2T2 install, doing chroot /mnt/sysimage, and inspecting /boot/grub. There was no "menu.lst" file. I then booted into rescue mode again and selected the FC1 installation, did a grub-install, and rebooted. However, I did not know the correct line for /boot/grub/menu.lst applicable for FC2T2. Therefore, I re-installed Fedora Core 2 Test 2 from ftp again and this time selected to install the boot loader. This time the /boot/grub/menu.lst file was generated and I could boot and log in. The lines needed to boot FC2T2 are different from FC1 and not obvious to the uninitiated. The resolution for this bug may be to not install a boot loader (i.e. not to overwrite grub) if the "no boot loader" option is checked. It is also safer to write a /boot/grub/menu.lst file somewhere so the correct 4 lines can be inferred and added to an existing grub bootloader: title Fedora Core (2.6.3-2.1.253.2.1) root (hd1,0) kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.3-2.1.253.2.1 ro root=LABEL=/12 rhgb quiet initrd /initrd-2.6.3-2.1.253.2.1.img Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 9.2-2 How reproducible: Didn't try Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install FC2T2 on a hard drive which (on other existing partitions) contains FC1. Only select and label partitions which are not used by FC1. 2. Check "no boot loader" option during install. 3. Reboot after install. Actual Results: After reboot, booting stops with grub> prompt. Expected Results: grub should read /boot/grub/menu.lst, display the menu, and boot. Additional info: Let me know if I should try to reproduce the bug (by re-installing FC2T2;-).
I repeated the entire procedure on a different computer (Dell D300). This time the boot loader did NOT get deleted. The only difference in the setup is that that machine has RH9 installed instead of FC1.
I repeated the entire procedure on a different computer (Dell D300, Pentium 2,compared to the previous Dell XPS T600, Pentium 3). This time the boot loader did NOT get deleted. The only difference in the setup is that that machine has RH9 installed instead of FC1.
"No boot loader" should only be used when you're using a 3rd party boot loader such as boot magic. We still upgrade the grub package which moves some files around and probably led to the problems you had.