I have a serious problem with Grub (or something). I have a Vista machine and I created space for openSUSE, which I installed. Everything went well and I had openSUSE working, and was able to start Vista.
Problems began when I used YaST to change the boot order so that Vista was the default OS. Now when I switch on, all I get is a black screen with a little underscore in the top left.
I really don’t want to have to remove openSUSE from the machine - I want a way of accessing files when Vista fails (like it did a few nights ago, causing a complete reinstall - long story which I can’t be bothered to relate).
Does anyone know of a way of fixing Grub so that my various OSs are available?
Thanks. However, I’ve decided to do a “clean” install of Vista. I haven’t had any luck with a live CD or Knoppix, and when I tried to repair the system, Grub did not show Vista in its options.
Reading around some other articles, I think that the problem arose because I changed the boot priority order. Vista was expecting to find its own boot info on a particular partition/sector, and I suspect that it was lost when I changed the order through YaST. Vista did work before I changed the OS order, although I didn’t try it more than once.
What do you think? If I re-installed openSUSE and left the boot order as it is, would that work? I really want dual-boot so that I have more chance of rescuing data from the hard drive when (not if!) Vista has a catastrophic wobbly.
Alternatively, is there a different boot loader which I should consider?
As you mentioned about clean installation. I would not go with that. Because repairing grub is not a big issue. Its some how common now.
Did you read and follow and applied the link i provided above.
I also do change the boot order time to time, and use that link to repair/install the grub. Which works like a charm.
You can use lilo instead of default grub. but i would suggest to use the default grub. Anyhow, its your choice.
Your issue occured because following your install of openSUSE you had not fully updated. There was a bug in the release which caused what you experienced.
A re-install is not necessary BTW. And with the system updated you should be fine changing boot order.
I can give you some advice on grub and Vista in detail if you like?
My advice is make sure Vista is updated with all current Service Packs, as they will not install once grub is in control. You have to repair the Vista bootloader and have the boot flag on the Vista boot partition in order to install service Packs. Once done you can repair grub. It only takes a few mins to repair grub. (The Vista Service Packs are not quite so speedy!)
All you had to do was downloading SuperGrub boot disk, burn it on a CD en boot the pc with it.
Inside the supergrub boot menu you have to choose the option to boot your own Linux distro. It will allow you to select the boot partition and will show you the grub contents.
Once the system is booten in opensuse, start yast and reinstall the bootloader.
Happens to me all the time when I restore an image of the bootpartition from Acronis True Image.