I’ve had problems getting both to work, right now the grub loader is not showing up on suse 11.0, when I boot up my computer, it goes right into windows, without displaying the screen where I can select to go into windows or suse.
Try this: boot off the dvd and immediately select to “repair installed system” on the very first screen. Then “Expert Tools”. Then “Install New Boot Loader”. Check that in the second tab you have the X instructing to put the code in the MBR.Then “Finish”. Then Exit the repair process.
Then you should be able to boot into Suse but perhaps not windows but don’t worry – that in step 2 below:
If you then have troubles with windows (possibly will) then boot into Suse and go to Yast –> System –> Boot Loader. The Grub configuration screen comes up with the Tab “Section Management” activated. In the lower right is a drop-down selector labelled “Other”. Select from “Other” the option “Propose New Configuration” and then wait for Grub to analyse your partitions and display a new configuration. This may take a while. Important: When that finishes, activate the tab labelled “Boot Loader Installation” and select to “Boot from the Master Boot Record”. [Yast will often default to booting from the root or boot partition rather than from the MBR but that’s for experts only – always choose the MBR.] Then click Finish to save the changes and install the reconfigured Grub into the hard drive’s MBR. If you get a message that "The bootloader boot sector will be written to a floppy disk … don’t bother with the floppy – just click OK to proceed and install to the MBR. Reboot and you should be able to boot to openSUSE using the Grub menu screen which now shoould include windows.
If you still can’t get to windows then post back here the contents of the file /boot/grub/menu.lst plus the output from the console command fdisk -l. To get at menu.lst you will have to get superuser powers going to read menu.lst because of -rw------- permissions on the file.
I did what you said, and then I tried to fix the boot manager when I was in suse. I rebooted and went to the windows option on the grub boot loader. Then I got an error message (the same as before) saying that a file was missing, so I had to use the windows dvd to fix that so I could log into windows. After that I tried one more time to get into suse by doing the repair option from the DVD. Now I get a white screen when I log into suse that hangs. So it seems I can’t have both operating systems on a dual boot. I wish they would have done some testing with this before they released 11.0. But for now I need to be productive for work so I will have to stick with windows.
If anyone has been able to get this to work I would like to know, and how you got it working.
You were nearly there when you had the Suse boot and the Windows boot on the same list. The last fix was a tweak for the windows bit. Recall I said:
If you still can’t get to windows then post back here the contents of the file /boot/grub/menu.lst plus the output from the console command fdisk -l. To get at menu.lst you will have to get superuser powers going to read menu.lst because of -rw------- permissions on the file.
That was so I could point out the tweak to get windows correctly booting.
It should work if you do it again and do both the steps.
On the other hand if you’re too nervous about losing boot to windows, there’s the option of adding Suse to the windows bootloader. But it’s moderately advanced. Read it here:
Boot Multiboot openSUSE Windows (2000, XP, Vista - any mix) with Windows bootloader.
Personally, since you were so close except for doing the last step, I recommend the first option that you nearly concluded before. It really boils down to editing this sort of entry in menu.lst text file:
title windows
rootnoverify (hd0,Z)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
so that it looks like this:
title windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
If you redo it and can’t figure out how to do fdisk -l or how to get the contents of menu.lst posted here, you could simply edit the file menu.lst and take a chance you got it right; but you’d need to edit it as superuser.
Swerdna
PS there’s a sticky on just this problem at beginning of this forum
Well I would have done what you said, if my entire screen didn’t turn white when I tried to log into suse, which I mentioned in my previous post. I tried repairing, but that didn’t fix the problem. Even the failsafe can’t boot up properly. For now I am just gonna hold off unless someone can confirm that they have the two working side by side, and can post details on how they did it.
You’re having a lot of bad luck adaykin. Just for interest, what’s your video card and which desktop KDE4, KDE3.5, Gnome? are you using.
On the other hand if you’re too nervous about losing boot to windows, there’s the option of adding Suse to the windows bootloader. But it’s moderately advanced. Read it here:
Boot Multiboot openSUSE Windows (2000, XP, Vista - any mix) with Windows bootloader.
swerdna
The article mentions creating a boot.ini file in Vista. If you do this, how does it affect/interact with the Vista bootloader, BCD?
Just curious. Thanks.
I have been using KDE4, and my video card is an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600
Vista has been programmed to recognise “boot.ini” as a bootloader file and to incorporate the menu from boot.ini into the menu it presents each time you boot. I discovered that if you put a boot.ini file (containing a pointer to Suse) on the vista bootloader partition, then vista recognises Suse and offeres it as an option. Later if you delete boot.ini, the Suse entry disappears from vista’s menu and vista forgets about it. Vista is not “hurt” by adding or deleting a boot.ini file.
swerdna
Many thanks. Interesting. I wasn’t aware you could do this. Amazing how you can learn something new about Windows from a Linux site! 
So if I’m not able to get into my suse partition now because of the white screen, would I still be able to do the steps for the boot.ini file from vista?
There’s not much point attaching Suse to vista’s bootloader until you can resolve the white screen. And you can’t start Suse booting without the install DVD I suppose. Perhaps the ATI drivers are mis configured. But I suggest you go back to the 11.o DVD’s repair facility and that will get Grub back in the Master Boot Record and booting to Suse should work again. Maybe with a good screen, maybe not. You know how to reinstall the vista bootloader now, so you can junk the Suse anytime.
If you can only get the white screen do this: boot to Suse but on the opening screen type the number “1” and press enter. That should get you to a login console. Log on as root.
Enter sax2 -a which should recalibrate and save without input from you. That might get the GUI back.
If that fails then enter sax2 which should recalibrate the screen and give you an option to change the configuration and then save it.
If that fails then enter sax2 -r which should throw out the old hardware database, re-detect it, and then recalibrate.
If that fails then enter sax2 -m 0=vesa which should give you vesa graphics. (0 is a number)
If any of there work goto Yast and either install ATI drivers and/or alter the graphics setup to suit.
?? how do you fare
I got suse to work, and I tried what you suggested earlier, but windows still won’t boot. Here are the contents of menu.lst:
default 1
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: xen###
title Xen -- openSUSE 11.0 - 2.6.25.5-1.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/xen.gz
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-xen root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_FUJITSU_MHV2200_NY10T7725P1P-part6 resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent showopts
module /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-xen
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_FUJITSU_MHV2200_NY10T7725P1P-part6 resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 1
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader (hd0,1)+1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title windows 2
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader (hd0,2)+1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.0
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_FUJITSU_MHV2200_NY10T7725P1P-part6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off x11failsafe
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Kernel-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae###
title Kernel-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_FUJITSU_MHV2200_NY10T7725P1P-part6 resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.5-1.1-pae
It lies in one of these two:
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 1
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader (hd0,1)+1
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title windows 2
rootnoverify (hd0,5)
chainloader (hd0,2)+1
It’s really hard to be more positive without the requested data from fdisk -l, but I’ll make a guess that this is a notebook with a manufacturer’s utility partition in the first place. I suspect on the basis of that guess that the first “chainloader” is the windows system partition and the second is an auxiliary ntfs partition. If that’s right then change the first one to this:
###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader (hd0,1)+1
I don’t know how to edit the file menu.lst in KDE4 because in my install of KDE4 I can’t get an editor to work, or practically anything to work because KDE4 is still experimantal – I scrapped it and installed the stable option (Kde3.5.9). Theoretically you open a console and enter kdesu kwrite /etc/boot/menu.lst to edit menu.lst.
I did su -, and then kwrite menu.lst, and I was able to modify the menu.lst. Here are the contents of fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000e5cc8
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 196 1572864 27 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 196 20273 161267712 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 24190 24322 1060864 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 * 20274 24189 31455270 f W95 Ext'd(LBA)
/dev/sda5 20274 20535 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 20536 22026 11976426 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 22027 24189 17374266 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
It looks like the first partition sda1 is a utility partition then. Just out of interest, what’s the computer?
I’m not sure where you’re at in terms of booting – where are you at?
I’m not sure which way you want to go now – do you want to do booting Suse from the windows bootloader or booting windows from the Suse/Grub bootloader?
[Incidentally, having an asterisk against two partitions could muck up windows booting – it’s 2 active partitions on one drive – not good – I say that to remind later to correct that]
Well, I tried getting into windows now but I got the same problem as before. I would like to try booting windows from the Suse/Grub bootloader.
My laptop is a Fujitsu Lifebook N Series.
I was able to get it working, I had to tweak the chainloader part of the Windows Vista entry, thanks!
Glad I could help
Congratulations! Another soul rescued from a monochrome life with Microsoft, phew 
By the way, just for interest, what does the entry in menu.lst for vista look like now?