Restore GRUB

GRUB is a boot loader commonly used with linux operating system. It can be used to managed dual boot environment where linux and windows can coexist easily in a same machine without problem provided you install the windows OS first so that when you install linux, GRUB will overwrite Windows boot loader and automatically detect and manage both operating system the next time you boot your computer. Problems will happen if you alter your partitions outside the knowledge of GRUB, for example, you create new partition in your hard drive using windows. This will cause GRUB to automatically go into GRUB shell when boot. To restore back your GRUB is very simple, just follow easy steps below:

1. find in which partition does GRUB store its configuration file, which is your /boot partition. (hd0,2) means third partition of the first hard drive
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,2)

2. set the root for GRUB to be (hd0,2)
grub> root (hd0,2)

3. write GRUB to the Master boot record(MBR) of your hard drive. Change (hd0) to (hd0,2) to write GRUB to your /boot partition instead
grub> setup (hd0)

4. Reboot machine
grub> reboot

All those steps can also be used using livecd, if let say the grub shell did not come out but you cannot boot your machine or you cannot boot your linux due to messed up GRUB. just boot from livecd, open a terminal, and type "grub" as a superuser to go to GRUB shell