Hey guys, I’m finally decided to try Linux again and I chose to go with Suse this time. I have a question about configuring Linux’s boot manager.
First, my Windows partition and the future Suse partition will be on different HDDs, so this should ease things a bit.
What I want is:
Suse is on HDD 2 and Windows on HDD 1
HDD 2 will be the default Master drive, so I want GRUB to give me to option to boot either on Suse, either on Windows 7
I want to keep Windows 7 boot manager intact. I.E. If I switch HDD 1 to the Master drive, it will boot directly into Win 7.
What I wanted to do is:
Unplugg Windows drive
Install Suse
Replugg Windows drive and manually add the entry to GRUB
Would that be the easy way? Or if I keep them both plugged, Linux will not touch HDD 1 MBR?
Thank you!
Just make sure the SUSE is drive is set to first in boot order.
Make sure you know which drive is which when you see them in the installer.
Don’t disconnect the Windows drive.
Use custom partitioning to make sure everything goes where you want it
Thanks for the input but my main concern to keep Windows boot manager intact on HDD 1. I used to have them installed on the same physical HDD and that would destroy Windows boot manager, making me unable to boot into Windows if I remove Linux. I have quite some experience installing Linux, but this is a my first time installing on 2 separate physical drives, and I want to use that to my advantage.
My 2 drives are already all partitioned, and there is a 20GB raw left that I kept for a Linux install.
But let’s refer to it a the win HD. Which will become HD2.
If you are really worried. Then disconnect win HD. And we can sort the grub boot code out for it later.
please fellows help: I’ve installed SuSE 11.2 GNOME
on W7 machine, and boot menu won’t show W7 at all.
fdisk -l yields the following:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x13db7a78
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2874 38913 289491300 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 8015 MB, 8015282176 bytes
32 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7765 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2016 * 512 = 1032192 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ea64ec
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 7765 7827088+ b W95 FAT32
the contents of /boot/grubn/menu.lst is the following:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Wed Jun 9 20:41:39 ALMT 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 (hd0,1)/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 (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD3200BEKT-60V5T1_WD-WX10AB939079-part2 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD3200BEKT-60V5T1_WD-WX10AB939079-part1 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 (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD3200BEKT-60V5T1_WD-WX10AB939079-part2 showopts apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 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
Ah, there is also a file called “menu.lst.old”…
Now, my question is: how to get back W7 to boot menu?
As I remember initially they had C:\ and D:\ – C:\ contained Windows and was large (299G) and D:\ contained “Restore” or something and was small… You mean that Win95 in sdb1’s line looks odd?
I just made my desktop dual-boot with Linux on /dev/sda and Windows 7 on /dev/sdb without modifying the boot record (as far as I know).
One thing that stuck me was that I had to make sure the BIOS could see both of them, which meant making sure the Linux (with Grub) was set as Master and placed in the master connector, while Windows was the Slave and set in the slave connector of the ribbon.
If I switch the Windows system to Master (or cable select) and removed Linux it would boot. Unfortunately I cannot leave it at Cable Select with the Linux hard disk connected.
Ah, sorry, it was my USB flash disk plugged in. Now fdisk shows only this:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x13db7a78
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2874 38913 289491300 83 Linux
That’s only one hard drive, for whatever reason it isn’t seeing the second (/dev/sdbn).
If you boot into your BIOS, do you see all of the hard drives listed, or just the one? What if you unplug your Linux hard drive and only show the Windows hard drive?
Oh, he’s trying a dual boot on one hard disk, not the 2 disks the thread starter was setting up? Sorry. In that case, it looks like Win7 got written over!
I had a similar problem with Vista on a Lenovo X61 with docking station. I got it working, but it proved to be extremely instable, since everytime Vista did an automatic restart due to a security upgrade or software installation, it tried to kill Linux or committed suicide. Since I use Vista extremeley seldom, I finally installed Vista on the HD in the docking station and Linux on the HD in the computer. I then set the boot order to first booting from the docking station. Now if I want Vista, I just attach the docking station and Vista starts. If the docking station is not attached, the HD with Vista does not exist and the computer starts on the built-in HD. For the rare cases when I want Linux with the docking station attached, I just change the boot order temporarily.
