Help with undoing Portable SUSE on my laptop

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi.

I had a happy XP/SUSE 11 dual boot setup on my laptop. I wanted to try using Portable SUSE - openSUSE on my XO, but I did something wrong when I tried to install it onto a USB drive from my laptop.

Here’s what I remember doing:

  1. Donwloaded PortableSUSE 10.3
  2. Extracted the files to desktop (but not the data.tar file)
  3. Launched the console and logged in as SU
  4. CD to the extracted data.tar and .installation file
  5. Executed the ./installation command
  6. At the options, chose Y, N, N (I think… I know I said no to NVIDIA and changing my boot loader)
  7. Post install, could not find any files on the USB drive, so I figured it didn’t work.

Where stuff stands now:

  • Windows partition is still intact, but there is no boot loader entry for it. I will try to figure out how to restore the entry.
  • SUSE looks okay right now, but I’m concerned because my laptop is running SUSE 11.0 and I had downloaded PortableSUSE 10.3 to install onto the USB drive.

It looks like my old menu items are still intact:

menu.lst.old

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Thu Jul 24 22:34:06 EDT 2008
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0 - 2.6.25.9-0.2
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.9-0.2-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1646G_489QT9MDT-part6 resume=/dev/sda5 splash=silent showopts vga=0x314
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.9-0.2-pae

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.0 - 2.6.25.9-0.2
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.9-0.2-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1646G_489QT9MDT-part6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off x11failsafe vga=0x314
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.9-0.2-pae

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
    rootnoverify (hd0,5)
    chainloader (hd0,0)+1

current menu.lst

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Aug  2 18:32:16 EDT 2008
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1646G_489QT9MDT-part6    splash=silent showopts
    initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.0
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_TOSHIBA_MK1646G_489QT9MDT-part6 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off  x11failsafe
    initrd /boot/initrd

If I just restore the menu.lst contents, will I be okay? What would PortableSUSE have replaced/modified from 10.3 that would impact the integrity of my current installation of 11.0?

Thanks

Julianna

#2

After working with my computer some more, it seems the menu.lst file didn’t change with PortableSUSE, but with me using the computer to install SUSE onto a USB drive. I just added the original boot lines to the menu.lst file, and everything seems fine (I’m keeping the other two just incase…).