Initial GRUB set up (XP and openSUSE)

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I have a Dell Studio 1737 Notebook PC - Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz, 4GB DDR2, with two 320GB SATA HDD. I wanted to have one hard drive dedicated to Windows OSes (XP, Windows 7) and on the other hard drive for UNIX OSes (openSUSE as a primary OS and something else just to learn - RedHat/Ubuntu/openBSD/openSolaris etc.)

On the first hard drive I have two partitions roughly of the same size with Winows XP Professional SP3 installed on the first partition of that hard drive and the second partition left unformatted during the installation.

I have installed openSUSE 11.1 x86_64 and here where it gets fussy for me. I think I have it installed on the second hard drive and I think I don’t have only one partition on that hard drive because I simply followed the default configuration settings during the installation.

Now when I turn on my laptop the GRUB displays four options:

openSUSE 11.1
Failsafe

Windows1
Windows2

And even though both XP (Windows1) and openSUSE load normally I am not sure this what I wanted. First of all I don’t know how many partitions I’ve got on my hard drive with openSUSE and if it’s only one can I get a second/third partition set up now. Second and it’s just a minor nuance I don’t like how my GRUB options look like. I’ve red some of the topics in this section dealing with the GRUB modification and I am not sure I can handle this on my own. Also I would like to know if there is an option to stop the OS options timer completely, not to show partitions that have nothing in them and set up passwords in GRUB for every OS installed.

Thanks in advance.

2

Open a terminal and become su
Become su in Terminal - HowTo - openSUSE Forums

Now type:

fdisk -l

Post result

3 

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x844c844c

Device Boot    Start     End     Blokes      Id   System

/dev/sda1          1    19456   156280288+   7    HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2      19457    38913   156288352+   f    w95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5      19457    19718     2104483+   82   Linux swap /Solaris
/dev/sda6      19719    22329    20972826    83   Linux
/dev/sda7      22330    38913   133210948+   83   Linux

The Desktop is GNOME

4

So you can see there are5 partitions, though sda2 extended is really just a container for 5,6,7.

I thought you had 2 HD’s

5

I do. I can see both of them in BIOS.
I have both Windows XP and openSUSE DVDs and I have nothing installed in both OSes so worse comes to worse I can always wipe out both OSes and re-install again.

6

That fdisk output - Is that all of it then? Because it only shows 1 HD
If you take the side panel off the PC Box can you see 2 HD’s;)
Sorry - Have to ask

7

My bad. There was another header that looked to me just like the other one. And I know there two hard drives because I bought and plugged them in together with an extra bracket kit from Dell myself. As I said, they show up in BIOS settings.
Here is another heading:


Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x83e383e3

  Device Boot   Start     End    Blocks     Id   System
/dev/sdb1           1    38913  312568641   7    HPFS/NTFS

Sorry about that.

8

So the first HD

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x844c844c

Device Boot Start End Blokes Id System

/dev/sda1 1 19456 156280288+ 7 HPFS/NTFS Windows
/dev/sda2 19457 38913 156288352+ f w95 Ext’d (LBA) Extended
/dev/sda5 19457 19718 2104483+ 82 Linux swap /Solaris swap
/dev/sda6 19719 22329 20972826 83 Linux root
/dev/sda7 22330 38913 133210948+ 83 Linux home
And the Second HD

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x83e383e3

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 38913 312568641 7 HPFS/NTFS Windows

Now - If you go in your file browser in SUSE do you have a folder /windows and inside there any other folders eg: C and D?

N.B.
You may only have One installation of XP but the system sees NTFS partitions as Windows.
So either sda1 is your XP install along with SUSE on that drive

or
sdb is XP all on it’s own

9

Yep. I have a folder windows with both C and D subfolders. D only contains a folder “System Volume Information”

N.B.
You may only have One installation of XP but the system sees NTFS partitions as Windows.
So either sda1 is your XP install along with SUSE on that drive or sdb is XP all on it’s own

The hard drive which had windows installed on it has only one partition formatted to NTFS, the other partition was left unpartitioned intentionally.

10

The hard drive which had windows installed on it
Looks like it now has openSUSE on it

D: I suspect is an empty ntfs volume. The “System Volume Information” is something to do with windows recovery I think.

11

So… Even tough everything works, It looks like I’ve got the set-up I didn’t want and there is no other way around it but start all over again.

Now, how do I uninstall both OSes cleanly and set up the system which I wanted? Is Windows installed first and then openSUSE or the other way around? The thing the screwed me up is that apparently Windows and Linux see the same hard drives differently and I need to know how not to mix them up when installing openSUSE.

Suggestions?

12

You don’t need to uninstall them both.

Boot the installer dvd and proceed with a new installation, first though, make sure that the drive C the one with windows on is NOT first boot device in the BIOS. We need to have the other drive D set first in the BIOS.

So assuming you have that, when you are in the installation setup, it may now show the HD’s differently, it was:
C=sda
D=sdb

But it may now be reversed and I think, to make it even more confusing the D above will now be C. :open_mouth:
Thing is, you need to ignore C or D, it’s pointless rubbishy info. The main this is that you Know which way the devices are in the BIOS.
You know which HD is which in the installer partitioner because of the number of partitions.
So you need to go to Custom Partitioning - Don’t just accept the defaults. This slideshow will help as it shows the way, it’s in Open Office format:
11.2slideshow.odp.zip - Windows Live

or you can just view the folder online here:
11.2 Slideshow Images - Windows Live

In the partitioner you can delete
sda7, 6, 5, 2
In that order and then you can expand sda1 back to take up all the free space.
Remember though this HD might now be referred to as sdb:)

On the other HD create the same as you just deleted. This involves shrinking sdb1 (or it could be sda1) You have 320GB so to half it is fine and anyway, there is nothing on this drive. Proceed with install and set the Grub bootloader to the MBR of the drive you installed SUSE to.

Another possibly simpler solution. Download Parted Magic
Downloads
Boot from it. Use the Partitioner there to delete all the partitions we just mentioned above
sda7, 6, 5, 2
And use the resize tool to let sda1 use all the space - Apply: (this takes a while)

When done reboot with windows cd: proceed to the screen where you have the option to Repair Your Computer. Press “R” for Repair and log onto the Windows installation. When the command prompt appears, enter the command fixmbr. Confirm “yes” and you will receive confirmation of the reinstallation of Windows bootstrap code into the MBR. Enter exit and the computer will reboot.

Now you are back at square 1

Follow the principles in this guide:
Partitioning/Install Guide - openSUSE Forums
Refer to the slide show above too

13

Thanks. I will try that.

14

How can I make an NTFS-partitioned drive to be used to install openSUSE?

15

If you mean install openSUSE to ntfs - Not possible

Well unless you count using it for Virtual Machine images (Which I do)
But I guess I’m confusing you now

16

Well… that’s what I’ve got right now:
C: 149.04 GB NTFS
149.05 GB UNallocated

D: 298.09 GB NTFS

Windows XP is installed on C.

I need somehow to convert D to be used with Linux OSes like openSUSE.

P.S. In another news. Apparently it’s not legit to wipe out all UNIX partitions and reset MBR. Not only I’ve cleaned openSUSE but Windows as well for after doing that my laptop didn’t have any OSes and the only option available for booting was from a CD.

17

You can let the SUSE installer do it for you, it will format it to the correct file system

At this point do what it says http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pBtuGss3PJJnt7_zsuIF6wGN84sNqw1ih4Co8OcrK-77M0_4qMrwcyknHOo2ZgjJiSs7GhoRzbu1rjGaK4kWV_g/pic8-default%20partition%20proposal.png

Then here you should be able to select the disc and in the next step choose use entire disc
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pyigcAgDwi_TYGg2VFzEVZAKMiuBBhAw2jTN2nafPMtSvuuUJY-c2TxF2KfkWg9qgsbfMLXZH6EMp1DbjlFKJFw/pic9-custom%20partitioons.png

18

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

About that WinXP that I had. It was on C, I just didn’t have access to it. After re-installing, I looked inside my C and I saw three “Windows” folders: Windows, Windows0 and Windows1. As I understand now this are identical copies: first is the one I had with openSUSE, the second one is a copy which was about to be created when my battery died on me and the third one is the working copy now. I’ve deleted the first two folders; however, every time I boot now I am presented with a choice from MBR with three “Windows XP”, two of which don’t work. How can I clean up my MBR?

Thanks in advance.

19

In the grub boot list make a mental note of the one that works
Eg: Is it the first 2nd or 3rd down

Now to edit out what you don’t need

If SUSE is KDE this in a terminal and hit enter, you will need then to enter your admin password

kdesu kwrite /boot/grub/menu.lst

or In Gnome

gnomesu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Carefully edit out the entries you don’t want

Another way is to go to Yast - System - Bootloader
you can remove the entries there too