I have 2 exactly the same harddrives. One contains a brand new installation of WinXP (with nothing, yet added). On the other hd I’m trying to install Suse11.
Just before the end of the Suse install I get the following error message
Error occured while installing GRUB
GNU GRUB 0.97 (640k lower/3072k upper)
[Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word TAB lists the possible command like ooptions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device /filename.]
I’m suspecting, that it has something to do with the windows installation, since I used a hd that previously had a dual boot with WinXP and Vista installed. I didn’t do a format, just deleted the Vista partition and did a brand new Xp installation.
Could the problem be, that there are still some remnants of Vista in the mbr? I have no idea how to solve this problem, so any help is greatly appreciated. (obviously I’m trying to get away without having to do a complete format)
Grub error 22 might result if the bios settings changed (like with an F key to change the boot drive). Help me get my bearings:
Is this right: ??
You have a drive at position 1, connected via the motherboard (not usb), with a new install of xp on it, where you put the xp install disk in and effectively said to it “delete vista partition and install xp on drive 1”
the whole of drive 1 was occupied by ntfs partitions – no room for Suse
And you also have a similar drive at position 2, connected via the motherboard (not usb), where you were installing Suse
during all of these the bios/computer was set to boot off the first hard drive
Did you manipulate the bios boot sequence activated either by a function key (like on mine it’s F11) or by pressing the “del” key and changing the boot sequence in the bios? If so, exactly how.
That’s not your problem. Actually, while the boot loader in Vista is entirely different from XP, the MBR strap code is the same. That code could even boot openSUSE, were it on the same disk. It looks like grub thinks openSUSE is being installed to the first drive on the channel and is trying to install to the boot sector of its first partition. Except that drive is the XP drive, and it’s first partition is formatted NTFS, which grub cannot read; hence error #22. @swerdna is guiding you to getting grub aligned with the boot sequence configured in your bios. You will not need to format anything. For that matter, formatting would not change what’s in the MBR, anyway.
