created 2 partitions on laptop (/ and swap) formatted them. mounted both source and target (under /mnt on each machine) rsync -a / from desktop -> laptop (Note: OS on desktop is on sdb5. On laptop it's going to sda1)

Now I need to put grub on mbr of laptop boot: linux rescue chroot /mnt/sysimage

Here is my problem

grub-install /dev/sda The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly.

Can anyone determine why I'm getting the above error?

I also tried cp -a /usr/share/grub/i386-redhat/* /boot/grub no joy

Here is all important info (gathered from linux rescue chroot /mnt/sysimage):

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/boot/grub/device.map

(fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd0) /dev/sda

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/etc/fstab

/dev/sda1 / ext3 defaults 1 1 devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0 tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0 proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0 /dev/sda2 swap swap defaults 0 0

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/etc/mtab

/dev/sda1 / ext3 rw,defaults 0 0 proc /proc proc rw,defaults 0 0 sysfs /sys sysfs rw,defaults 0 0 /dev/sysfs /sys sysfs rw,defaults 0 0

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fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 9500 76308718+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 9501 9729 1839442+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

---------------------------

/boot/grub/grub.conf

# grub.conf generated by anaconda # # Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file # NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that # all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg. # root (hd0,0) # kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/md0 # initrd /boot/initrd-version.img #boot=/dev/sda1 default=0 timeout=10 splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz #hiddenmenu title CentOS (2.6.18-92.1.10.el5) root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5 ro root=/dev/sda1 rhgb quiet initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5.img

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mount output (in chroot /mnt/sysimage)

/dev/sda1 on / type ext3 (rw,defaults) proc on /proc type proc (rw,defaults) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,defaults) /dev/sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,defaults)

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/boot/grub

total 328 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 30 Sep 20 16:42 device.map -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7584 Sep 20 20:17 e2fs_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7456 Sep 20 20:17 fat_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6720 Sep 20 20:17 ffs_stage1_5 -rw------- 1 root root 618 Sep 20 20:17 grub.conf -rw------- 1 root root 917 Sep 20 20:16 grub.conf.orig -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6720 Sep 20 20:17 iso9660_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8192 Sep 20 20:17 jfs_stage1_5 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Sep 20 18:16 menu.lst -> grub.conf -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6880 Sep 20 20:17 minix_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9248 Sep 20 20:17 reiserfs_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5427 Nov 22 2007 splash.xpm.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Sep 20 20:17 stage1 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104956 Sep 20 20:17 stage2 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 104956 May 24 14:37 stage2_eltorito -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7072 Sep 20 20:17 ufs2_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6272 Sep 20 20:17 vstafs_stage1_5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 8864 Sep 20 20:17 xfs_stage1_5

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/boot

total 14720 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 884809 Jun 14 2007 System.map-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 912799 Aug 5 05:05 System.map-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 912900 Jun 25 11:13 System.map-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 62154 Jun 14 2007 config-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65411 Aug 5 05:05 config-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65410 Jun 25 11:13 config-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 20 20:47 grub -rw------- 1 root root 1523888 Jul 12 19:47 initrd-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5.img -rw------- 1 root root 2412127 Aug 28 14:48 initrd-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5.img -rw------- 1 root root 2412095 Jul 12 17:31 initrd-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5.img -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 80032 Nov 22 2007 message -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 83542 Jun 14 2007 symvers-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 91721 Aug 5 05:05 symvers-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 91734 Jun 25 11:13 symvers-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1765588 Jun 14 2007 vmlinuz-2.6.18-8.1.6.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1805620 Aug 5 05:05 vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.10.el5 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1805556 Jun 25 11:13 vmlinuz-2.6.18-92.1.6.el5