Ok, I managed to make SUSE boot from the grub command prompt (see previous post). I copied snippets from the ‘menu.lst’ file in /boot/grub.
grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> kernel /boot/vmlinuz splash=silent showopts vga=0x31a
grub> initrd /boot/initrd
grub> boot
This works. I suspect it is the initrd that swung it. I have no clue what initrd does, yet.
So this means that to have SUSE boot off it’s own HD via bios selection requires the GRUB to be installed on the SUSE HD’s MBR with instructions to boot off hd0 (even though SUSE was installed on, the then, hd1).
The other thing which concerns me is that the GRUB menu.lst and device.map files may be set in stone at /usr/lib/grub when SUSE is first installed. Is that right? So if they are hdN-specific then the grub will always be N specific. Which is not what I want because SUSE assumes N=1 whereas I need grub to assume N=0. Can I use grub ‘setup’ and circumvent the SUSE default list and map files? I don’t know yet.
I must be missing something simple because this all seems asinine in its complexity. Ideally, wouldn’t GRUB scan for SUSE on every disk no matter where GRUB is and no matter what the bios calls it and then offer it up for booting?