I need to reinstall the 11.4 bootloader (but to the root partition instead of the MBR). There used to be an automated repair GUI on the 11.1 DVD, but it seems to be gone from the 11.4 distro. Is it someplace special I can find it? Can I use my 11.1 DVD to just (easily) reinstall the bootloader? I am not a command-line person!!
TIA!!!
Patti:)
Can you just explain, if you are actually using 11.4, is it booting or Not!
Post your fdisk info with
fdisk -l
Tell us which partitions are for 11.4
Have you seen these
Re-Install Grub Quickly with Parted Magic
To install the Grub bootloader in the root partition instead of the MBR, apply the method described in caf4926’s guide but instead of typing
setup (hd0)
you would type
setup (hd0,1)
in caf4926’s example, meaning it’s not necessarely going to be (hd0,1) in your case.
However, if your root partition is a logical partition and not a primary (is called sda5 or higher), you’ll have to install Grub in the bootsector of the extended partition in order to be able to boot from it directly. We need to see the output of fdisk -l to tell you more.
Once this is done, you have to set the bootflag on this partition. This can be done with updategrub -a if you installed this script. Oherwise you can use fdisk. Here’s an example with fdisk (again, the numbers might be different in your case): Windows and openSuse 11.4 dual boot problem
Thanks. I had GRUB controlling boot of my system (Win7, opensuse, kubuntu) with GRUB booting from the MBR. I had to reinstall Win7 and now opensuse won’t boot because the windows bootloader (and EasyBCD) can only find the bootloader for opensuse if booting from a linux partition. So I have to reinstall the bootloader (in opensuse) to boot from the root partition (or something like that) - then EasyBCD can find it and add it to the boot menu. I can already boot Kubuntu (from the win7 bootloader) because I had the foresight to install the Kubuntu bootloader to its root partition.
In 11.1 there was a GUI repair utility that would let me do this easily but that appears to be gone from 11.4, and I stink at complex command-line stuff. But I’ll try the caf4926 example and hope for the best. I hope they add the GUI repair tool back into the next version of OpenSuSE for noobz like me.
You seem not to be booting from Grub but just chainloading it from Windows bootmanager. Is that right? In this case, do NOT activate Grub’s or any other partition. Just install Grub in the bootsector on your openSUSE root partition.
Well … If you do activate the (primary or extended) partition where you installed the Grub bootloader, you will be able to chainload the other way and even boot in circle:
Grub => Windows bootmanager => Grub => Windows bootmanager, etc.
Some people find it amusing. lol!