how to recover Suse 11.0 /boot if Ubuntu's grub lost them

Hi!
I have a multiboot multidrive system with open Suse 11.0 on partition 11 and 12 of my first drive.(sda11 and sda12)

As I have encountered a major Ubuntu drive designation bug when re-installing Hardy after having installed Suse 11.0. (again) and not realising the problem until I installed Ubuntu’s grub on sdc1 to follow the “faulty” partitionner scheme. This caused me to be incapable of booting into any OS: Suse, Windows or Ubuntu (yet when I reverse my bios order it’s confirmed that windows still boots fine and my partitions appear to have things installed at least seen graphically in gparted).

My other linux OS were designated a /boot partition on the 1st drive (IDE) and in the past, Gutsy Ubuntu’s grub was able to list all my OS entries fine so that is why I prefer to install Ubuntu last. But now Ubuntu switched my drive sda to sdc and (second drive SCSI) sdb to sda and (3rd drive SCSI) sdc to sdb!!! I thought this was some new installation approach (since I am still a relative newbie) and I forgot that /boot and grub must be on the first drive, so I went along with the faulty alternate install of Hardy! Note: Suse designates the 1st drive as sdc as well not sda, and I put it’s grub on sdc1 during suse install but for some reason Suse on its own, could properly boot at that point!!

So a long story short, after I will try to re-install Ubuntu correctly (it seems the installer changes its designation of drives at each reinstall, so I might get the right one again!) is there a way of getting my Suse bootable again without re-installing a 3rd time??? I can’t count on Ubuntu’s grub or can I? since my /boot partition was automatically formatted during the ubuntu install in order to have it mounted as /boot … Is that what I am supposed to do? I am wondering if I did one step different a year back when I installed Suse 10.2 (JAD) and then Ubuntu Gutsy - everything went smooth back then…

Anyone had similar experiences or has advice esp. with Open Suse/Ubuntu/Windows - multiboot installation?

well for me it is the following:
I have win vista installed as default on the laptops single drive.
i installed ubuntu 8,10, booting the two was no hassle.
next i installed opensuse 11.1… then the problems came up:

  1. It shows after boot suse/ubuntu/vista, from these ubuntu doesnt start, shows only error 15 file missing, press any key to retry - fortunately suse+vista works.
  2. so i fix ubuntu grub -> then only ubuntu/vista is shown and they work, but no sign of opensuse there

I think it is obvious what I would like to achieve - the possibility to choose between the three (or maybe even four, if i add fedora or sth else) when boot comes up.

Boot with the DVD and choose repair.
This should fix grub and add suse, ubuntu and widows to the menu

/Geoff