Grub / Booting Problem In Opensuse 10.3

I am using openSUSE 10.3 since last some months. abot a month ago, one day I clicked on the restart button (long click) in KDE desktop and by mistake selected "failsafe mode" and then openSUSE rebooted into safe mode. After that it stopped booting into normal mode (IO had not passed even a single command in the failsafe mode, excep init 6).

Frustated, I reinstalled whole operating system. But the problem remained. I tried installaing ubuntu and it worked fine! Right now, I am using openSUSE 10.3 while the boot loader is controlled by Ubuntu which RESTS on my PC as my secondary OS. Ubuntu is there just for the sake of bootloader!

What do you guys think would have gone wrong that the installation gives me such problems.

I must add that the same DVD installs things properly on other computers. I have used the same DVD for many other installations on my friends' machines (even after that happened to me) and it does work fine. Also, the problem is only with the openSUSE DVD. Other distros and Windows OS is working fine.

What can be the problem?

I'm not sure what the problem if my understanding is correct, at the moment it all works fine?

But you have Ubuntu's bootloader controlling it.

TBH I have something similar and with a dying hdd keep meaning to take control of the bootloader from the disc that's presently controlling it. AFAIK you should be able to just tell Suse to reinstall the bootloader pointing it to the correct place.

I have seen Suse go to init 3, which isn't failsafe. But this was caused by a dying HDD fixed by just removing the offending partition in my case from fstab.

Perhaps some of this will help. I haven't tried installing grub to use Suse when using another distro's grub. But in principle can't see why you would have any problems as long as all config files and the partition is marked for boot in fdisk is correct.

IMO I suspect you where reaching init 3 due to a corrupt partition.

Another possibility, I noticed once upon a reinstall that the installer for SuSE10.2 some how would not select to install the boot loader in / and I suspect it was detecting the previous installation and was sorta looking at the install as a dual boot. I found by using Parted Magic and formating the whole disc the Install went with out the problem.
Might not be your situation, but a thought.

Well, guys, I knew that it was in init 1 coz thats what the boot messages had shown. I had checked the file system (it was an ext3) and also reinstalled Grub a number of times in SUSE but it did not work.

The thing that make me scratch my head is: how the ubuntu bootloader works fine on the same HDD, with same configuration (of the partitions) on the same hard disk while opensuse fails.

@Matt: Since there was only a single OS, there is no possibility of a wrong mount point mapping.

@FM: My HDD is fine and no OS shows any error (not even in system logs) and my grub files were fine. However when I try to reinstall grub, it usually asked for a floppy to write the code on. Since I do not have a FDD, thats impossible. Secondly, the bootloader automatically started booting into the last selection. That is the problem. If I do by mistake select the failsafe from the bootmenu, i will immediately land into problem (so I have disabled that entry in the boot menu).

I'm getting more confused init 1 is recovery mode iirc, and not failsafe.

AFAIK the only thing that is coming into play is menu.1st but even if some how the default had got changed, this wouldn't cause it to use another selection from menu.1st. We know grub is working otherwise you wouldn't even reach init 3.

So as menu.1st is coming into play perhaps this is the fault or maybe though you think the HDD is fine its possible the fstab has an error. Whether this would cause it stop at init 3 I'm unsure but suspect so.

Maybe post menu.1st and fstab if possible check them both across both distro's. Many times I cat one menu.1st in to another, I tend to be bit a distro surfer so quite often have more than one. Normally I just let the latest distro take over and fix that ones menu.1st.

@Matt: Since there was only a single OS, there is no possibility of a wrong mount point mapping.

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My installation was just a single boot on one HD as well. I avoid dual boot setups mostly. I must admit I avoid fail safe selection for booting because of issues I had years ago with it not working correctly. Instead I specify which run level I wish to boot into on the boot options line.

As for one OS, actually unless you had formated the drive, there was the previous OS that SUSE was installing over. Did you try the Expert option during Installation for establishing your Partitions?

what about using super grub disc to see if that repairs it? may work...? as the suse 10.3 repair won't :angry:

For opensuse 10.2, in somewhat similar problem, via the dvd install disk I followed the following:

(1) Load the SuSE install DVD in the DVD-ROM drive and boot up the machine.

(2) Choose installation.

(3) In three there comes a 'other' box. Choose 'boot installed system' from that.

(4) Once SuSE is booted up, go into YaST > system > bootloader.

(5) Choose the 'other' box on the bottom right hand side of the panel, then choose 'propose new configuration'. If the new proposed config includes SuSE Linux then click finish to save.

(6) Remove the Install DVD and reboot.

The above steps did not quiet work for my situation once, so I had to add the following in the file /boot/grub/menu.lst :

# linux installation on /dev/hdc5.
title openSUSE 10.2 (on /dev/hdc5)
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/hdc5 ro quiet sp
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default
savedefault
boot

NOTE: For the manual settings above, u can also check out in ubuntu, since u are dual booting. So u have 3 ways, now.

Hope it solves your problem.

@Matt: I always partition the disk MY way (using expert mode).

@Khurram: I tried that. But it did not work!

@Feather Monkey: menu.lst (not menu.1st, as you typed it) was fine. I did a 'cat' to it and checked it thoroughly. No problems. I also compared it with that of Ubuntu, except the debian comments, everything was same (and yes, how can I forget the UUID thing!). ANd it does boot up properly, SUSE won't.

I hope that the 11th avtar will be better and may be that will make my machine boot properly!

Out of ideas you left me scratching my head, first thought corrupt disc, ruled out you maintain it works on other pcs.

Next corrupt HDD perhaps just in boot sector ruled that one out Ubuntu works. I doubt that Suse do much tweaking to grub if any. So personally I doubt there is anything different between Ubuntu's grub and Suse maybe age and version. Don't think grub has seen much development for years in fact I noticed from there site they look like they're moving onto the new generation.