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grubinst.exe is a console mode program to install GRUB4DOS boot code to the MBR or partition boot sector.

I downloaded it from GRUB4DOS project page grubinst_1.0.1_bin_win.zip, and I think its for 32 bit windows.

But I can run it in 64 bit ubuntu

$ ./grubinst.exe --version
grubinst version : 1.0.1

3 Answers 3

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There is so-called binfmt support on Linux that allows passing of arbitrary binary file (e.g. Windows executables) executions to some Linux application that knows how to handle it (e.g. wine).

Also bootlace.com is a specially formatted binary that has ELF header and both Linux and DOS code: ELF (linux executable) header must be placed at start of file and DOS code must be started at position 0x100 (remember, COM is not PE, NE or MZ executable, it is just a piece of code), so there it is and ELF header redirects Linux file loader to Linux code that is placed after DOS'.

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Do you have wine (or something similar) installed? Then that can be expected to work. Try

sudo update-binfmts --display
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  • I uninstalled wine. grubinst.exe wont work any more, it says "run-detectors: unable to find an interpreter for ./grubinst.exe" But i can still run bootlace.com
    – user26163
    Jan 26, 2010 at 12:42
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Perhaps because you have wine installed.

Wine runs a background daemon to allow windows .exe files to be run the same way that normal linux programs are run.

However, you would likely find that the program would still not be able to write to the MBR, simply because wine doesn't implement that sort of thing.

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  • I do have wine installed, but i think to run it through wine, i should type "wine grubinst.exe" I used bootlace.com in ubuntu to write MBR of a external usb hard disk, and it boots. bootlace.com is also a program for windows, i think
    – user26163
    Jan 26, 2010 at 12:22

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