I have a windows 7 hard drive as Sda0 and have a second hard drive as Sdb1, which is where I want to install OpenSuse 11.4. Now here is where I am not sure on the install, so I don’t screw my self up. I have 100mb partition on sda0 that windows 7 is using, do I enable grub or have the boot write to MBR?
- cherock1254,
easiest IMHO is to use the MBR. Grub will automatically include a Windows boot option.
Note that it will mark the Linux partition as “active”, which causes a problem when you want to install SP1 for Windows 7. You must mark the Windows partition as active then.
Uwe
It is by far easier to use the MBR but you can make the Windows Boot Manager have an entry for Grub.
Using Vista’s Boot Manager to Boot Linux and Dual Booting with BitLocker Protection with TPM Support - Port25 - Site Home - TechNet Blogs
Before you install any GNU/Linux version, I recommend you ensure you have a bootable MS-Windows recovery CD that has on it an application that will allow you to restore the MBR to the MS-Windows MBR.
… or alternatively you can do what I do, which is when MS-Windows is the ONLY OS on the hard drive, is to boot to a liveCD BEFORE installing GNU/Linux and backup the mbr to a file (with the dd command) and then copy that file to a memory stick, and keep that file permanently safe somewhere. That way I can always easily restore the MBR.
Assuming you have only one hard drive (which I am assuming is identified as ‘sda’), then the ‘dd’ command I recommend to use is:
dd if=/dev/sda of=MBR-backup-only-windows-installed bs=440 count=1
Note that is 440 and NOT 446.
That will create the file ‘MBR-backup-only-windows-installed’. Copy that file to a USB stick (while still booting to the liveCD). And keep that backup file forever. When the time comes to restore the MBR, with the backuped up file, you can run from any GNU/Linux boot (liveCD or hard drive):
dd if=MBR-backup-only-windows-installed of=/dev/sda bs=440 count=1
which will restore the MBR to EXACTLY how it was BEFORE you installed GNU/Linux. Of course you will still need MS-Windows on the PC in the same place it was before you started all of this (else there is little point in restoring the MBR).
… and what ever you do, do NOT reverse those commands or you will truely ‘hose’ your MBR.