I’ve installed CentOS on an extended partition without its boot loader. I tried to use SUSE grub to boot CentOS but it didnt work. Have tried various appends from PCLinuxOS 17 but that no luck still.
How do I get CentOS to boot from SUSE grub.
What are the details?
Disc and Partition
fdisk -l
current suse /boot/grub/menu.lst
and current centos /boot/grub/menu.lst (or /boot/grub/grub.conf if it’s like Fedora) if you’re able to mount your centos /boot partition under openSUSE.
I have not installed centos grub, i decided not to installing its boot manager on sda or on its partition.
I will get those details shortly, installing Fedora atm.
All right, but next time install it on its /boot or / partition. It doesn’t hurt.
Can you mount your centos / partition or if you made a separate one your centos /boot partition.
Then show us the output of mount and ls /mnt/boot (or wherever your centos /boot partition is mounted).
Here is fdisk -l
fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007d4a8
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 5222 41945683+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 5223 9791 36699957 a5 FreeBSD
/dev/sda3 9791 11749 15728170+ bf Solaris
/dev/sda4 * 11750 38913 218194830 5 Extended
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 11750 12271 4192933+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 12272 13315 8385898+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 13316 13968 5245191 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 13969 15012 8385898+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 15013 15665 5245191 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 15666 16709 8385898+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 16710 18014 10482381 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 18015 19058 8385898+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda13 19059 19711 5245191 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000bb0c5
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 60801 488384001 7 HPFS/NTFS
Fedora intall has resulted into unbootable system, installing SUSE 11.2 now, will post menu.lst when done.
Let me offer some advice, already mentioned here:
Let the distro install it’s bootloader to root - do this in each case.
Then reinstall SUSE bootloader with a live CD and then edit in boot options for the added OS’s
Yeah, that is what I will do hereon.
I’m sure I have given you this before
Re-Install Grub Quickly with Parted Magic
Actually any live cd will do. I use it because it’s small and quick
New menu list post SUSE 11.2 -
Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Sep 20 05:43:13 SGT 2010
THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
Configure custom boot parameters for updated kernels in /etc/sysconfig/bootloader
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,13)/boot/message
##YaST - activate
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop – openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.5-0.1
root (hd0,13)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3320418AS_9VMD0YPT-part14 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3320418AS_9VMD0YPT-part5 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe – openSUSE 11.2 - 2.6.31.5-0.1
root (hd0,13)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3320418AS_9VMD0YPT-part14 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Desktop – openSUSE 11.3 - 2.6.34.7-0.2 (/dev/sda10)###
title Desktop – openSUSE 11.3 - 2.6.34.7-0.2 (/dev/sda10)
root (hd0,9)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 7 Ultimate x64
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: other###
title FreeBSD 8.1 i386
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: other###
title openSolaris 2009.06 b134 x86
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: PClinuxOS 17 (/dev/sda6)###
title PClinuxOS 17 (/dev/sda6)
root (hd0,5)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: other###
title CentOS-5.5-x86_64
rootnoverify (hd0,7)
chainloader +1
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Fedora (2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64) (/dev/sda12)###
title Fedora (2.6.33.3-85.fc13.x86_64) (/dev/sda12)
rootnoverify (hd0,11)
chainloader +1
Now add OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, Arch Linux, Debian and/or Ubuntu, Gentoo, Mandriva to your collection … and you’ll be good. 
Yeah, i plan to add arch, ubuntu, mint, gentoo, debian, mandriva, knoppix (copy from usb), **** vulnerable linux, mempis, etc…, trying to make sure i wont get capped by bt.
d a m n isnt a swearing word, why is it censored.
Not to mention that you don’t have to chainload all these Linux. You can boot them directly (just copy/paste their boot entry from their own /boot/grub/menu.lst (or grub.conf). You can also boot the FreeBSD kernel directly. If you edit the openSUSE /boot/grub/menu.lst manually, write a comment starting with ‘###’ above each entry, as in your example, to prevent YaST from removing it.
Yeah, its pretty straight. I just wish to get centos to boot. its giving grub error 13. have tried various appends and kernel details after browsing thru install dvd but nothing has worked so far. I am planning to get a recursive grub, never had difficulties booting bsd, it works just fine without its boot manager.
Did you re-install it with it’s own bootloader to /
No, I didnt reinstall it. Do I need to reinstall it or get its image title and append.
I am not sure
Does it take long to install again?
Have BT got you on a limit?
I got centos dvd but that takes more than an hour for install.
In order to get CentOS boot I installed Ubuntu 10.10 beta and updated its grub. It boots CentOS fine and picked up everything but Unix.
I wish to reinstall SUSE 11.2 Grub on extended partition and manage the boot from there. Secondly, I tried to create more logical partitions on extended partition but I get some error. Wish to install 7 more OS on same disk. Have tried gparted live cd but it returns kernel error (not supported or something), I understand that one can create 60 odd logical partitions on an extended partition.