Error occured while installing GRUB

This is my first linux install ever, so I have no idea what is going on. I hope I have enough information to get this figured out as soon as possible.
I was bored with windows 7 and wanted to learn another operating system.
I made a boot cd with openSuSE gnome. On the internal hard drive is my windows 7 boot system that i do not want to touch, and on the external 1tb hard drive, i’d like to partition 50 GB for openSuSE. If this is not possible i have another method, but i’d rather not use it (which is use my secondary 80 GiB hdd).
When installing, I am getting the error, “Error occured while installing GRUB” Which shows the following:


GNU GRUB v. 0.97  (640K lower/ 3072K upper memory)

 Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename.]
grub> setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 --force-lba (hd0) (hd3,5)
checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
"  "                            stage2" exists... yes
"  "                            e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)" ... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd3,5)"... failed (this is not fatal)
running "install --force-lba --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu.lst "...failed

Error 21: selected disk does not exist


There is a bit more, but let me know if i need to include the rest.

But upon trying to install to the external hard drive, i have had no success yet, i would like to do that if possible.

Thank you guys in advance!

I’m confused at what stage you get this message. Did you install the OS or does this happen when you simply run the CD?

this is near the very end of the install.

additional detail: when i restart, the ext hdd light just blinks a lot and i have a blinking underscore on the monitor :\

after 30 minutes, nothing.

thx for the reply!

How many hard drive do you have? the error message is indicating hd3. Which would indicate 4 drives (counting starts at 0)! If you only have 2 how you manged that I don’t know.

Can you run the OS from the cd and post the output of
sudo fdisk -l (note that is a Lower case L not a one)

from a console.

lets see…

1- 400 gb hdd
2- 80 gb hdd
3- 1 tb hdd
4- 50 gb partition on the tb hdd…if that counts?

as a side note, i’ve seen the command sudo, what does it mean exactly?

the output of sudo fdisk -l is as follows:

uhh…not sure this is right… but from the gnome desktop>computer>more applications>GNOME terminal
i get an error: sudo: fdisk: command not found.
also the same with xterm
when i just do fdisk -l, i get
“Absolute path to ‘fdisk’ is ‘/sbin/fdisk’, so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).”

$20 bucks im doing something wrong…

what about:

sudo /sbin/fdisk -l

or


su -l
fdisk -l

?

sure, just remember this is from the live openSuSE cd. ~700 mb.

that said:

the first line you gave me gave me a long string of text, i’ll type as much as i can i guess.

lol



disk /dev/sdb:82.0 GB
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
sector size:  512 bytes / 512 bytes
disk identifier : 0x7ac66ffa

device boot    start    end     blocks       Id  system 
/dev/sdb1  *      1     9964  80035798+  7     HPFS/NTFS



disk /dev/sda:  400.1gb   (same thing, except 400 gb instead of 82.0 gb)
disk identifier:  0x8b39301c

device boot     start        end            blocks               Id             System
/dev/sda1  *           1       48642       390709248           7          HPFS/NTFS


Disk /dev/sdc:  1000.2 GB,   (again, same thing except a terabyte not a 400 or 82 gb...)
Disk Identifier:  0x8b39301c


Device Boot                Start               End                   Blocks                            Id                  System

/dev/sdc1                       1           117777          946039098                               7                     HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc2  *           117777           121602           30721024                                F                   W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdc5               117777           118039            2106368                                82                  linux swap / solaris
/dev/sdc6               118040           119495          11694080                                83                     Linux
/dev/sdc7               119496           121600          16907264                                83                   Linux

now also know, i’ve made a few different partitions i guess, and i couldn’t figure out how to wipe them out and combine them into one 30/50 gb partition on the external tb hard drive.

Good luck interpreting, thank you :slight_smile:

and, for some reason when i try to format the 82 gb hdd, i can’t do it for some reason, said it is in use while i do it.
Even when im in a windows setting, i can’t format it, not sure why…so using an internal hdd is gonna be a bit difficult.

You have 3 hard drives a partition on the 1 TB is not counted as a hard drive it is a partition. So the BIOS sees it as hd2.

I do not remember having another one, unless maybe a usb drive? feh…
So, doctor, give me the news.

Can anybody help me out, I really wish I could just get this thing installed!

Thanks in advance!