Want to Kill GRUB: Grub Won't Die

[dannymichel]

the story is, i had a perfect dual boot; ubuntu, os x. i formated my hdd at that time as GUID, because i wasn't aware that i could use MBR while installing via 'myhack' and retail dvd. i found myself needing windows, so i figured 'why not start fresh' as i had learned how to install dual boot os x and ubuntu on guid. since i'd recently learned i could install os x on mbr, and ubuntu worked better with mbr anyway, i decided my triple boot would be os x on partition 1, ubuntu on partitions 2,3, and 4, and windows on 5. i proceeded to install all 3 operating systems; windows first, ubuntu second, and os x last. i used the same method that i used to dual boot os x and ubuntu. once os x was installed last, i would install myhack on my os x install hdd, which was sda1 as ubuntu was concerned, then boot into ubuntu and install grub on it's '/' partition, as i did last time, which was sda5 this time. ubuntu's grub was booting instead of 'myhack' so i booted into os x with my usb image again, and installed myhack on the hdd again. grub still would not die. any ideas?

[srs5694]

First, verify what boot loader is in the MBR. You may be able to figure this out by examining the first sector of the disk in a hex editor, such as hexedit in Linux. (I doubt if Ubuntu installs it by default.) Look for give-away strings like "GRUB" or "Chameleon" amidst all the binary code.

 

If it appears that GRUB is in the MBR, you should re-install it to the boot sector of the Linux partition and then install whatever you want to use as your primary boot loader to the MBR.

 

If it appears that GRUB is not in the MBR, then you may want to examine what partition is marked as active (aka bootable) in the partition table. Adjust the partition table so that either nothing is marked as active or the OS X partition is marked as active.

[dannymichel]

First, verify what boot loader is in the MBR. You may be able to figure this out by examining the first sector of the disk in a hex editor, such as hexedit in Linux. (I doubt if Ubuntu installs it by default.) Look for give-away strings like "GRUB" or "Chameleon" amidst all the binary code.

 

If it appears that GRUB is in the MBR, you should re-install it to the boot sector of the Linux partition and then install whatever you want to use as your primary boot loader to the MBR.

 

If it appears that GRUB is not in the MBR, then you may want to examine what partition is marked as active (aka bootable) in the partition table. Adjust the partition table so that either nothing is marked as active or the OS X partition is marked as active.

thank you for the reply.

i resolved this by not trying to kill grub, but making it work for me.

I'm using it now, instead of trying to use chameleon by default. chameleon still doesn't see my Linux install, but grub sees, and boots snow leopard after edits.

grub did have os x entries, but they we're long and complicated, and made os x boot with gui problems.

my os x boot entry:

menuentry "Mac OS X: Snow Leopard" --class macosx {
 set root=(hd0,1)
 multiboot /boot
}