Modify a Grub entry at startup

To modify a Grub at boot, during the boot sequence, when you have the different boot entry like Flash or failsafe, you have a few second to press the up or down arrow to choose another entry. Do it, the countdow is now stopped.

Move the cursor up and down over the entry to modify and press 'e' to edit it

You now see 2 lines, the first one being of the form: kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-8mdv root=/dev/hda6 splash=silent vga=788

You can modify any one the entries by moving the cursor with the direction arrow and pressing 'e' on top of entry to modify.

You are then inside the entry, where you can again move the cursor but this time right and left, to modify or add any text. Note that the automatic completion exist for the command names and the partitions which can be quite handy as GRUB as a different naming scheme than Linux.

Once your entry is modifed, if you're satisfied, use the 'enter' key to valid your modifications or 'esc' to cancel them and go back to the precedent screen.

Once all entries have been modified, type 'b' to boot with this new personnalised entry.

Note that those modifications are temporary, you need to modify the file: /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to put permanent modification or personnalised entries.