First and foremost, I’ve been an avid Windows user my entire life and know very little to nothing about Linux, hence the reason for the install. I was told by a bud that openSUSE would be a good start, so I decided to just jump right in. Downloaded and got the .iso loaded up on my thumb drive without a problem. Ran through the install without, what I thought, a hitch. Rebooted and the computer booted straight into Windows. I read through a few articles about trying to repair Grub using GParted and I gave it a shot. First went through (what I believe) is the process of reinstalling Grub and then tried changing the boot flags around to (again, what I thought) was the right order, all to no avail. I managed to get the boot flags straightened back out and booted back into Windows, but I’m pretty much at square one.
For the background on my setup. I’ve got two 500 Gb Western Digital drive’s installed, one with Windows and the other as a media drive. I added a 150 Gb Samsung drive to be dedicated to the Linux install. I did a fresh format to NTFS from within Windows after slapping the drive in and left it for a few days. Tonight I tried out the install and selected the option that allowed me to use the entire Samsung drive without messing with the two 500 Gb drives with the Windows partitions; it did say during the install that it was setting the mount on the three Windows partitions (System Reserved, main OS drive, and media).
I’m pretty much lost. I can usually work my way through with a little push in the right way. If someone could add in and explain some of the stuff I’ll be asked to do that would really help. I’ve figured out through the years that knowing what to do and knowing why you do it are two very different things. Unfortunately, as I said before, I’m a complete noob at this so I wouldn’t even know what other information to provide up-front other than what I’ve already given. Thanks for everyone’s time that decides to give me a hand and hope to repay the favor in some way down the road.
root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hdd: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7e077e07
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 1 262 2103296 82 Linux swap
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdd2 262 2873 20972544 83 Linux
/dev/hdd3 2873 19458 133213184 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd108b089
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 60801 488382464 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5d0d0c5a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 13 60802 488282112 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdd: 7998 MB, 7998537728 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7628 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd1476021
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 681 697344 83 Linux
/dev/sdd2 682 7628 7113728 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdd1: 714 MB, 714080256 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 681 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd1476021
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1p1 * 1 681 697344 83 Linux
/dev/sdd1p2 682 7628 7113728 83 Linux
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(1023, 63, 32) logical=(7627, 63, 32)
OK. I see 3 harddisks. Right?
It is unclear to me why your 160.0 GB is called hdd. Or more exactly why it is using the old pata driver (which gives it the name hdX rather than sdX). Anyway it is obviously an IDE disk. If you want to boot from this hard disk you have to change the boot priority in your BIOS setup and - in this particular case - swich the boot order between SATA and IDE devices if that possibility exists. As you don’t have any partition set active on that disk, I assume the Grub bootloader was installed in MBR. Otherwise it won’t boot at all even if it has boot priority in the BIOS. If you installed Grub in the Linux root partition (probably hdd2), you have to set the bootflag on this partition. It can be done with fdisk from the live CD.
I didn’t even notice that the Samsung drive was being listed as an hdd. It’s definitely a SATA drive. I also had it selected as my primary HDD via BIOS during the install and through the rest of my trouble-shooting. I changed it back after I couldn’t get anything to work so that my computer would boot back into Windows without having to manually select the drive everytime. After the install process and I couldn’t get Grub to come up, I did try using GParted to remove the boot flags from the Windows partitions and setting the boot flag to the second partition on the Samsung (which I gathered is the actualy system partition). I used your guide caf4926 to get my copy of GParted, boot into it, tried moving around the flags, and then tried re-installing Grub using your provided steps, all to no avail. I also read through your article in the Wiki about how Grub works and how to fix it, but didn’t progress any farther.
root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hdd: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x7e077e07
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdd1 1 262 2103296 82 Linux swap
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/hdd2 262 2873 20972544 83 Linux
/dev/hdd3 2873 19458 133213184 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xd108b089
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 60801 488382464 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5d0d0c5a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 13 60802 488282112 7 HPFS/NTFS
Looks the same as before, just minus the info for the thumb drive. When I do the find grub command I get this:
I guess I used all my edit’s cause the button disappeared. Figured I’d also add the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst as I see you asked for it from someone with a similar issue.
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Tue Nov 16 16:58:35 EST 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
gfxmenu (hd2,1)/boot/message
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.3
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-desktop root=/dev/sdc2 resume=/dev/sdc1 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x345
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.34-12-desktop
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title windows 2
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 3###
title windows 3
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
rootnoverify (hd1,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linux other###
title Linux other
rootnoverify (hd3,0)
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.3
root (hd2,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-desktop root=/dev/sdc2 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe vga=0x345
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.34-12-desktop
I originally had the Samsung set to the first boot device during installation and during trouble-shooting. I didn’t change it back until right before I went to bed last night.
That looks logical. Unfortunately it won’t work for two reasons:
you’re not booting from that drive. So you don’t get to see that menu. And if you would change the BIOS order, you should replace root(hd2,1) with root(hd0,1)
your Linux drive should indeed be sdc
. But it is hdd. The reason why is beyond my understanding. It might be informativ though to have a look at /boot/grub/device.map.
That was what’s in /boot/grub/device.map. There’s also a device.map.old, dunno what for. So if I’m understanding everything right, it looks like grub was installed to the MBR on my Media drive (WD5000AACS), but it’s not working. I’ve tried booting from that drive using the boot option menu in BIOS and I just got the MBR missing.
0x80 is the first BIOS device (the one which will be booted first), 0x81 the second one, etc.
May I ask why? Be aware that the first boot device will be booted first! So you’re not going to see the Grub menu if the preceding devices have a valid bootcode and your Samsung drive is not listed as boot device (which is not obvious at all for the third drive).
If your asking why I changed it back, it was because I was having no luck being able to boot into my openSUSE install and my wife uses this computer while I’m at work. Let me change back to setting the Samsung drive as the first boot device and see what happens.
OK, I set the Samsung drive as the first boot device and it loaded into Grub, but a very basic looking one. When I tried to select the Linux OS option I got the following error
Booting 'openSUSE 11.3'
root (hd2,1)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.34-12-desktop root=/dev/sdc2 resume=/dev/sdc1 splash=s
ilent quiet showopts vga=0x345
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
I’m booting back into GParted now to run the above commands.