Failing to create a boot disk... ?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

So this one’s irking me. A lot. I just got a new laptop, Dell Studio 1537. I’m trying a few different distros on it to see who’s got the best driver support. I’m trying to install opensuse 11.1 and it’s just not working and I’m really confused by it.

My storage setup is as follows:


/dev/sda 298.09 GB Total
/dev/sda1 70.57 mb Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 10.00 gb Recovery
/dev/sda3 60.00 gb Windows
/dev/sda4 228.02 gb Extended
/dev/sda5 4.00 gb swap
/dev/sda6 1.00 gb Native /boot mounted
/dev/sda7 20.00 gb Native / mounted
/dev/sda8 203.01 gb Native /home mounted

(same thing happens if i combine /dev/sda7 and /dev/sda8 as well)

When I go to Boot Loader settings, I see the config files are in /boot and /etc so the mount points should work fine. I customize the install a bit, making it for a web developer (like I am). I can see the usage based on the partitions as well, boot ends up with 903.5 free out of 960, so it does look like it’s putting files in that filesystem as well. Install seems to go fine, then I get an error towards the end.

Error occurred while installing GRUB.

GNU GRUB version 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-lab (hd0,3) (hd0,5)
Checking if “/boot/grub/stage1” exists yes
Checking if “/boot/grub/stage2” exists yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5"exists yes
Running “embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,3)” failed (this is not fatal)
Running “embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,5)” failed (this is not fatal)
Running “install --force-lba --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,3) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu.lst” failed

Error 22 no such partition

After this runs, it prompts me for a floppy disk… which I can’t do because my laptop fails to have a floppy drive

Thoughts? I’m trying for a dual boot w/ vista.

2

You can make repairs from inside the running SuSEinstallation. So, can you boot into openSUSE?
And: are you looking into the filesystem from a Live Linux CD (or what)?

3

this was from the DVD based install. i’ve installed it before w/ a vista dual boot not sure what gives now. the funny thing is that i deleted the vista partition all together and it installed, so clearly there was some conflict there. i was unable to boot into anything, the screen just stayed black when it should have shown me the grub boot loader. i think i’ll be doing windows via VM anyways.

4

Hmmm. DVD based install – so you have the DVD. You could try booting into openSUSE and repairing the bootloader from there., if the install got far enough.

From this tutorial: HowTo Boot into openSUSE when it won’t Boot from the Grub Code on the Hard Drive
you could try option number one: Boot the installed system from the Installation DVD

The Installation DVDs carry a facility that locates and boots an existing installation of SuSE/openSUSE. Try to use an installation DVD that matches the Version that’s installed. The steps are slightly different for versions 10.x and 11.x, so I cover both. The developers left this facility out of Version 11.0, what a pity.

Boot from the openSUSE 11.x Installation DVD [x ≥ 1]

Boot from your installation DVD. On the first menu screen, select Installation. Proceed past the Licence screen to the Installation Mode screen. The Installation Mode screen has these options:

• New Installation
• Update
• Repair Installed System

Select Repair Installed System and Next to the Repair Method screen. Select Expert Tools. You will be presented with the Repair Tool Box screen. Select to Boot Installed System. You should be presented with a list of partitions. Select a partition and click Boot.

5

It could be that your BIOS has the 137GB (128GiB) (search for it) limitation on the location of the boot files. Certainly your disk is large enough that the files might be unreachable by the BIOS at boot time.