Red face here as I have messed up my multi booting system when installing 42.1 over 13.2 and seek assistance please with recovery.
The system used to boot with grub and then offer 13.2, eCS and windoze 7. The 13.2 installation broke during an upgrade and rather than waste time on that I installed 42.1, keeping my /home as was. Unfortunately I allowed the installation to write to MBR. Also it seems grub has become grub2. I have read the 16 pages of a recent saga on a similar problem but am no wiser and thought I had better start a new thread as recommended.
Here is the now existing disk setup:-
linux-rti7:~ # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00047476
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 2048 206847 204800 100M 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 819202047 818995200 390.5G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 * 819202048 3907028991 3087826944 1.4T f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 819204096 823410687 4206592 2G 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 823412736 865357823 41945088 20G 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 865359872 3012845567 2147485696 1T 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xe7e2a487
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 255 512006849 512006595 244.1G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 512006850 681461999 169455150 80.8G f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 512007105 595433924 83426820 39.8G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb6 595434180 681461999 86027820 41G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
AFAIK the eCS system was on /dev/sdb and the windows 7 and 13.2 on /dev/sda but the existing boot markers have me puzzled. The system now boots directly to 42.1.
Hi and thanks for the quick reply. Default Boot Section has openSUSE Leap 42.1, two advanced options of the same and Windoze 7. No sign of eCS but probably too old and no longer recognised. I can always add it once I have Windoze working for the accounts!
What next?
SDA1 looks to be a EFI boot partition but the Disk format is DOS Which does not make sense. If this machine has UEFI then you need to boot the installer in legacy mode. You can not cross boot EFI and MBR
I have a similar partition on my multiboot with windoze 7, but it isn’t an EFI partition, it is a ‘microsoft reserved system’ partition (or so), to which you have to set the boot flag to, if you want to boot windoze 7 without GRUB(2).
Do you have a copy of menu.lst from 13.2? This would make it much more easy.
What makes you believe so? This looks like normal Windows system partition.
I have no idea how it was added in 13.2. With grub2 foreign OS detection is performed by os-prober that does not have any special code for OS/2. To say “what next” we need to know where eCS boot block is installed (because grub2 does not have any loader for OS/2 either). Run GitHub - arvidjaar/bootinfoscript, paste output to http://susepaste.org/, this may give some clue how to boot from second partition.
Machine behaving slightly strangely, it would not reboot with Windoze selected as default as suggested in previous post so I did exactly what you suggest here. I still had to force a system halt from command line but when I rebooted I didn’t get grub, it booted straight into eCS.
Trouble is eCS is not reliable and I have forgotten all my Warp 4 partitioning stuff so now I shall have to boot using Parted-Magic live, which I do have.
Still leaves me with another “what next” but it was fun to see the eCS desktop meanwhile. Must be over a couple of years since I did. I now know I have three working systems on the machine. All I need to do is get the booting right.
Grateful for further suggestions please when you have time.
The solution may be rather simple:
To me it seems that your BIOS settings are such that the second HDD (/dev/sdb), i.e. the one with eCS on it, is the first in the boot order.
Then GRUB2 never is loaded, when it is installed on the first HDD (/dev/sda). How could it be then?
Check the boot order of drives/devices in your BIOS.
This doesn’t change anything on the HDDs themselves.
I have a similar hardware setup here, with a HDD and a SSD in one desktop PC, and the bootloader is loaded from the drive whichever comes first in the boot order of devices configured with the BIOS.
Same situation when booting from DVD or USB stick/drive: when you boot from DVD, then the bootloader is taken from that DVD, clearly.
Besides, I don’t see an advantage in making windoze the default, but it won’t hurt either.
For certain updates of windoze you will have to set the boot flag for the first small widoze system partition on /dev/sda1, or they won’t work otherwise.
That can easily be done using e.g. gparted.
And GRUB can’t help you there.
But take care and time whatever you do with tools like gparted, in order to not delete partitions and data then.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the suggestions. Am now using my second fall back machine as I have kvm problem due to various restarts etc. and have lost remote contact with problem machine and my normal workstation.
Will get back as soon as I can.
Using parted-magic I was able to move the boot flag to the openSUSE root partition. It had previously been set to the extended partition, (so I have no idea how system interpreted that but as stated it booted to ecs,). A reboot with the flag in the right place has me back in 42.1 and typing this. I have gparted installed so all I need now is instruction on how to create the boot menu and add the other partitions together with pointers to make it work. Will google a bit here but if there is a simple instruction thread please let me know.
Regards,
Budgie2
Don’t know what ecs is I assume some operating system. :shame:
In any case on MBR booting normally you can not boot into a partition partition the extended partition. But with Linux you can fake it if generic MBR code by putting the grub boot code on the extended and setting the boot flag there or by putting the grub code in the MBR at which point the boot flag is ignored.
Assuming you have not some how mixed MBR and EFI booting you should by ably to see ano other OS in the grub menu if you got to Yast-boot loader and set the flag to scan for foreign OS
Note assuming that originally you had grub code in MBR any major Windows update may set that back to generic
A bit strange, because Linux usually can boot from an extended partition - which is different from windoze.
Maybe something went wrong during the installation of 42.1.
But it is good to hear that you can boot 42.1!
You can as well change the boot flag using ‘parted’ as root from the command line, see man pages of ‘parted’.
Now try YaST->Bootloder with the settings I posted above, to get a boot with the OSs recognized.
Besides, if you move the boot flag to the windoze system partition /dev/sda1 in order to be able to have certain windoze updates completed, then you won’t see GRUB either, and you need a bootable system like gparted or an openSUSE installed on an USB stick to move the boot flag again afterwards.
Hi, I have booted into 42.1 and before I try and add windoze I have taken a look at the present situation as follows:-
linux-rti7:~ # parted -l
Model: ATA ST32000645NS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB primary ntfs type=07
2 106MB 419GB 419GB primary ntfs type=07
3 419GB 2000GB 1581GB extended boot, lba, type=0f
5 419GB 422GB 2154MB logical linux-swap(v1) type=82
6 422GB 443GB 21.5GB logical btrfs type=83
7 443GB 1543GB 1100GB logical ext4 type=83
Model: ATA ST32000645NS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 131kB 262GB 262GB primary jfs boot, type=07
2 262GB 349GB 86.8GB extended lba, type=0f
5 262GB 305GB 42.7GB logical jfs type=07
6 305GB 349GB 44.0GB logical jfs type=07
You can see that the boot flag has moved to the extended partition /dev/sda3 although I had put it I thought against /dev/sda6. Anyhow it is still working.
Note the boot flag also against /dev/sdb1 which is eCS (eCommStation a branch of OS/2 Warp 4, all now dead but another branch has sprouted.) This does not show on the Yast Bootloader Options but windoze does.
If I change the default to Windoze I then have to use CD to move flags. What I need to know is what I asked above, how do I add to the boot menu. I used to be able to do it in Boor Manager, how do I do it in Grub2?
Finally, in sorting out my KVM problem my main machine will not boot and says I must add rd.shell and rd.debug to kernel boot options. Trouble is how do I get the prompt when booting so I can add these. It used to be in the initial screen but somebody thinks it cool to hide it. How do I get it to appear so I can add the options?
Budgie2
Hi again!
Already the output of fdisk in your first post showed the boot flag at the extended partition
And otherwise it wouldn’t work that any Linux is booted from such an extended partition.
Anyway, it didn’t work then, and it works now, and peraps something else went wrong during the installation of 42.1.
If windoze wouldn’t be recognized, which is shipped with most of the PCs, then …
You, with your setup / two HDDs, can always boot eCS by changing the boot order using the BIOS setup.
OK, having eCS as an entry of GRUB would be more comfortable, but I can’t help you here.
If you set the boot flag to the windows system partition /dev/sda1, yes.
The default in the GRUB menu is something different, it just says which system will be booted by GRUB if you don’t interfere at boot.
Still you need the boot flag at the windoze system partition /dev/sda1 to have some windoze updates completed successfully.
Don’t know why they made things that complicated…
YaST did it for GRUB, and does it for GRUB2.
But if BootManager of YaST doesn’t recognize eCS, then some hand work will obviously be required.
I’m not familiar with that since I don’t use eCS.
Maybe the entry for windoze in /boot/grub2/boot.cfg provides a clue?
This seems to be a different story, and perhaps you should start a new thread on the forums with that topic.
Hi and thanks for the suggestion. Yes this is already set as noted above. If I pull down the default options windoze is there. My question is, if it is seen when using Yast in these options, why is it not shown as a boot option when booting?
I have had a look at my grub.cfg and I regret I cannot follow it. Will post it when back on the problem machine.
