Re-posting as my reply wasn't to the group at large last time.

Grub2 introduces further complications, and I'd have to refer you to your distribution's documentation on the subject, or a search for "grub2 configuration" - wayne's suggestion to not overwrite /boot with your restore is important.

Jim

Hello Jim,

I'm writing this from a webmail account so apologies for not snipping anything.

I've fixed the fstab file but it's still doing it. I *think* the problem is the grub configuration. Is there any way I can fix that without another re-install? I have to say I'm getting quite adept at that now though!

Hi Chris,

Depending on how your installer has managed the disk partitioning, you will either find the grub configuration in /boot/grub on your root partition, or on its own boot partition (check in the afore-mentioned fstab file for an entry mounted at "/boot"). In here you'll have a grub folder containing menu.lst

This config file drives your grub bootloader, its possible that the commands in here are pointing at a uuid or partition thats incorrect - make a note of all the partitions you've installed to, and ensure they appear something like the following for your linux boot entry:

title Arch Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 ro initrd /initramfs-linux.img

The important lines are: * root (hd0,0) -> pointing at the first disk, and first partition as the location for the boot files (the grub files and kernels where you found this config file normally - either your root partition or a seperate boot partition) * kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 ro -> this is the line which starts the kernel from your boot partition and tells it where to mount its root filesystem (in my case here, my system has created an initial ramdisk and its root partition is /dev/sda3 - partition 3 on my first SATA disk).

Hope this helps point you the right direction.

Jim

I do have a liveCD - I run Mandriva 2011 - but I want to make sure I don't screw up anything else in trying to fix this problem.

One other source of rogue files is the /run folder as that has a couple of files in /run/udev/rules.d/99-root.rules and 99-resume-link.rules but even deleting those had no effect so that's when I went looking for other causes. I've examined the .tgz backup files under Windows (the machine dual boots) and that's where I've just discovered the grub files.

Regards Chris