Open Source Info

grubinstall README

Purpose: allow GRUB to be booted from NT/2K/XP
This tool modifies the GRUB stage1 and stage2 image files located on an NTFS or FAT volume, to make them bootable by NTLDR.

Author: lode_leroy@hotmail.com

Acknowledgements:
* The AUTHORS of GNU GRUB 0.93 for creating GRUB
* Samuel Leo for writing fsys_ntfs.c
* Leonid Lisovskiy for writing fsys_iso9660.c
* Gary Ng for updating the GRUB makefiles for NTFS+ISO9660
* Chris Semler and Tobias Svensson for testing

Limitations:
booting OS'es from NTLDR requires stage1 to be on the same partition as NTLDR itself. Make sure that stage1 and stage2 are NOT on a compressed volume, and that the files are NOT compressed by Windows.

Usage:
let's say C: is the first partition on the first harddisk hence (hd0,0) is the GRUB name of this partition and C:\boot\stage1 is the NT name of the boot file

* To make the files stage1 and stage2 bootable from NTLDR:
C:\> grubinstall -d (hd0,0) -1 C:\boot\stage1 -2 C:\boot\stage2

When stage1, stage2, menu.lst are in C:\, use the following
C:\> grubinstall -d C:

* To make the installer detect the install location itself:
C:\> grubinstall -a -1 C:\boot\stage1 -2 C:\boot\stage2

* To make a boot floppy in A: (B: is not supported)
C:\> grubinstall -b -1 C:\boot\stage1 -2 C:\boot\stage2

Changes:
0.3:
- first released version

0.4:
- added experimental FAT support (not released)
- added support for DOS partition names (ie. "C:" instead of "(hd0,0)") this works only on windows XP

0.5:
- fixed bug with NTFS: hardcoded partition offset and clustersize replaced by information exposed by fsys_ntfs.c
- fixed FAT support
- added support for DOS path names (ie. C:\boot\stage1 instead of "C:/boot/stage1");
- code cleanup

0.6:
- removal of quotes from command line
- support for writing to a diskette

0.7:
- bugfixes for win32_filepos and current_pos
- corrected debug info: use format %I64u (MSVCRT.DLL) instead of %llu (glibc)
- added option to write to a bootdisk image to a file

0.8:
- added autodetect '-a' command line option to probe disks+partitions

0.9:
- renamed ntfsinstall to grubinstall
- improved support for DOS names grubinstall -d C:
- somewhat improved (?) error messages
- added an alternate grub name option

0.9b:
- corrected GRUB names (use PartitionNumber instead of entry number)
- added '-B' option, so now it can be installed on any drive
- -m '' now works to install without menu

0.9c:
- fix bug in using PartitionNumber (of OBI1 type :-)

0.9d:
- no changes. 9c contained a debug-version of stage2

1.0:
- no changes.

1.01:
- compile in bugfix for fsys_ntfs.c from original author
(http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?func=detailitem&item_id=8669)

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