Another Grub2 problem with 13.2

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I’m not a geek so I don’t know what details would help diagnose my problem booting openSUSE 13.2 but I can describe what happened. As I found a way of getting round the problem I’m not really asking for advice, just reporting, in case it’s of use.

First I should say that my computer was custom made in July 2011 and has had no hardware changes since then and no BIOS upgrade:

Hard drive 1 Western Digital 500 GB 7200rpm SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache
[some protected windows partition], sda1 sda2 (sda1 was a pre-installed Windows 7 which has never been booted because it was broken when I got the computer; sda2 is a backup partition)

Hard drive 2 is identical to Hard Drive 1 and is formatted:
sdb1 swap sdb2 / sdb3 /home

I burnt a 13.2 DVD for the installation. Tested it.

First attempt to install: I chose the defaults - sdb2 brtfs and grub2 installed in /dev/sdb2. Order of hard disks /dev/sdb /dev/sda

booted to a <grub rescue>
**
Second attempt:** I chose sdb2 brtfs and grub2 installed in the MBR. Order of disks the same.

booted to a <grub rescue>

Third attempt: I chose sbd2 ext4 and grub2 installed in /dev/sdb2.

booted to a <grub rescue>

Fourth attempt: I chose sbd2 ext4 and grub2 installed in the MBR

booted to a <grub rescue>

Fifth attempt:

I looked in the Boot Loader Settings during installation but there was no option to choose any boot loader but grub2. I noticed that both the MBR and /dev/sdb2 were ticked as the location of grub2 so I unticked the one I had not chosen before looking into the Settings

booted to a <grub rescue>

I gave up and re-installed 13.1 sbd2 ext4 and grub2 installed in the MBR (which was the default).

Grub menu and booted

Sixth attempt

I updated 13.1 to 13.2

Grub menu and booted

I really don’t think I did anything wrong. Though I am just a user, I have been installing SUSE since the day it became available for a network installation (about 2002?) and, though it was a lot tougher for me back then, SUSE always installed without hassles.

Thanks,

Jenny

#2

It’s hard to tell without more information, but sounds like you actually tried to boot with grub from previous installation. In case you are willing to repeat the test and 13.2 fails to boot - please download https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript/raw/master/bootinfoscript, run it from live CD and provide result (better to upload to http://susepaste.org/).

#3

Yes. Thank you for replying. One day I probably won’t be able to resist trying a fresh install of 13.2 again but it’s OK for now.

Thinking about it, I always choose Expert partitioning and I mount the NTFS sda drives at that stage. The YAST interface was different in 13.2 but I still chose Expert partitioning.

My confidence in the openSUSE people is a lot stronger than my confidence in myself so I wouldn’t be surprised if, being mildly bamboozled, I didn’t mess up the boot loader partition somehow while I was partitioning.

Best,

Jenny