I was wondering how to install suse 11.1 on a second hard drive (slave) and still have the functionality of the GRUB boot. Is it possible and does anyone know how to do it?
Partitioning/Install Guide - openSUSE Forums
But it’s likely the 2nd drive will not be slave, depends what is on drive 1.
If win, then drive 2 will become drive 1 with grub on it.
see also
All About Grub - openSUSE
I have done it! 
First, let me name your two HDs to avoid confusion. I shall call your first HD “FRED” and your second HD “SUE”.
Master/slave is irrelevant. This is to do with the IDE hardware protocol that stops two HDs fighting each other for control of their common bus. GRUB is oblivious.
You can install GRUB on either drive.
You can install SUSE on either drive.
The bios can be configured (advanced CMOS menu) to set which HD is the first to be booted from.
AFAIK, the SUSE install process defaults to installing GRUB on the first boot HD.
I recommend installing both GRUB and SUSE on SUE. Set the bios to boot first from SUE. Then reboot from the live CD and install SUSE on SUE. The install should not alter FRED in any way (check this in the installation/partitioning summary). When you reboot the bios will boot from SUE and you’ll see a GRUB menu. If you have an OS on FRED, like Windows, then this will appear as an option on the GRUB menu. After this, if you change the bios config to boot first off FRED then a reboot will go straight into FRED’s OS avoiding GRUB completely.
My recommendation is to install grub on the same drive as SUSE. Especially if you have Windows installed on the other HD. Windows has its own bootloader and doesn’t recognize GNU’s GRUB. This can have side effects - like when you repair or upgrade Windows or install a new Windows version, GRUB will be deleted. Vista will actually crash during SP1 install if GRUB is present on its HD because it performs a boot sequence integrity check.
It is said that Windows is sensitive to whether it is installed on the first boot device or not in the context of repairs and upgrades. If you ever need to modify the Windows installation you should first set the bios up to boot from the Windows HD before you do the Windows mods and afterwards set the bios to again boot off the SUSE HD.
I knew it could be done, but here is the problem. When I go to install 11.1 with the live CD it automatically selects the drive with windows on it (FRED, as you called it). I can’t find the option to change which disk to install to(SUE). Do you know what I am talking about? Thanks for the help.
Have you changed the boot order in your bios menu to boot from SUE first?
Can you post what SUSE says here - its partitioning proposal?
SUSE does allow you to choose, but it is a not easy to understand. SUSE should have spotted the two drives and has probably named them sda and sdb. One is Windows. The partitioner decides where to locate the 3 partitions that SUSE creates (root, swap and home). Eg: if Windows is on sdb then you want SUSE to create 3 partitions on sda, which will normally be called sda1, sda2 and sda3. If you are not sure which HD SUSE is proposing to install on then abort.
This is all foreign if you’ve only ever used Windows because Windows hides all this from you when you install it.
There is another way to protect Windows which is simply to disconnect the Windows HD while you install SUSE. Then a minor edit of the GRUB menu.lst file is needed to tell GRUB where to find Windows. I will explain. But try doing it the normal way first.
You can still avoid that.
What you may do is choose the expert partitioner.
Create a new partition in the second drive for /, home and maybe /boot. and put the appropriate mount points for each this way the installer will know where to install eliminating it’s automatic detection of the first hard drive.
By the way what are you planning for the first hard drive.
You can still avoid that.
What you may do is choose the expert partitioner.
Create a new partition in the second drive for /, home and maybe /boot. and put the appropriate mount points for each this way the installer will know where to install eliminating it’s automatic detection of the first hard drive.By the way what are you planning for the first hard drive.
Well I have Vista on my fist drive. Its a 500GB SATA drive. It already has a lot on it, so I didn’t want to shirink the little space it has left to put linux on it. I have another 500GB SATA that is split between 200GB (Where I want to install Linux) and 300GB (for all my media). I also have a external 120GB - but that one is mainly for random things to transfer. I unplugged it for right now to install SUSE.
I will see if reformatting the seperate partition and mounting will work. I didt think about doing that. I made the partition in windows ealier when I was installing Ubuntu. When Ubuntu didn’t work out I used wubi to just test it out…I wasnt to crazy about it. I have used SUSE in the past (version 9) years ago. Since then I have’t touched it much. I am trying to get back into the linux swing and I really like the look of KDE4.
Anyway…I will give that a try when I get home from work. It sounds like it will work. I use to have linux installed on a seperate drive a long time ago, but it has been so long that I forgot how to do it. And since its KDE4 and nothing is “simple” I thought I asking would be a better solution.
Have you changed the boot order in your bios menu to boot from SUE first?
Can you post what SUSE says here - its partitioning proposal?
SUSE does allow you to choose, but it is a not easy to understand. SUSE should have spotted the two drives and has probably named them sda and sdb. One is Windows. The partitioner decides where to locate the 3 partitions that SUSE creates (root, swap and home). Eg: if Windows is on sdb then you want SUSE to create 3 partitions on sda, which will normally be called sda1, sda2 and sda3. If you are not sure which HD SUSE is proposing to install on then abort.
This is all foreign if you’ve only ever used Windows because Windows hides all this from you when you install it.
There is another way to protect Windows which is simply to disconnect the Windows HD while you install SUSE. Then a minor edit of the GRUB menu.lst file is needed to tell GRUB where to find Windows. I will explain. But try doing it the normal way first.
I will try this first when I get home. I think this might have been what I did a long time ago. I’ll do it and report back on what I find out. Thanks for the help guys.
Just to reiterate, it is vital that you set the bios boot order to boot the non-Vista HD first. This way, the SUSE install program will allocate this drive as “sda” and will put GRUB on it. If you don’t do this, even if you sort the partitioning out, GRUB will end up on your Vista HD.
OR
Disconnect your Vista HD and install SUSE and afterwards modify the GRUB menu to include Vista.
@HolyShnikes
You have an abundance of advice here from all levels.
Just take your time and think about things. It can be take a while sometimes just to figure out stuff. You may find you even have to move the sata cable on the drive you intend to install suse to - to the first socket on the mobo and double check the boot order. Take careful note of how suse lists each HD, eg; sda, sdb, - Know which is which!
Then when you get here:
http://files.myopera.com/carl4926/albums/671478/19.png
You can make sure the correct drive is selected, only check MBR.
Don’t be afraid to back out if you feel unsure, because with suse, nothing happens right up to the very last moment. (This is not the case with all distro’s)
I gave you some links earlier which could be helpful. And if you can have access to another computer at the same time, so you can check stuff, even better.
Thanks for the help guys. I may write up a small tutorial on how to do this with all the information you gave me. It is working like a charm. I still have to set up the GRUB so that I can choose Windows 1 to log into Vista. I havent searched yet, but I am sure its on the site somewhere. I am loving the new OS.
That’s really great. I’m rapidly warming to SuSE: the more I use it the more it impresses me.
Let me know if you get stuck setting up the dual boot in GRUB. I personally found the variety of info on the subject a little defocussing, so I’ll give a hint by saying you need to edit one file in /boot/grub and you need to execute about 3 grub commands. That’s it. The GNU GRUB manual is useful.