I've mullered my bootloader

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi,

I have an Asus netbook with a dual boot of Windows 7 and Opensuse 13.1.

I made some changes with Yast to my grub2 settings, putting the OS selection timeout to zero seconds,
and changing the default boot OS.

When I tried to put the settings back they did not apply, and now I have no grub boot menu and my
computer just boots straight into Windows with no option to choose Suse.

In Yast I then changed the bootloader to grub rather than grub2 in the hope that I could get back to a boot menu
with options of which OS to boot, but that hasn’t worked either.

I can now only get into my Suse installation by booting off a USB stick with the DVD iso on it, dropping out of the
installation process and selecting boot installed system.

I’ve attached my partition table and some Yast screenshots.

I’m wondering if the only way to fix this now is a reinstall, or does anyone have an alternative suggestion?

Thanks

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/fdisk.png

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/bootloader1.png

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/bootloader3.png

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/bootloader2.png

#2

You have EFI BIOS and use the efi/boot partition. So you need not grub2 but grub2-efi

#3

On 2014-07-17 16:46 (GMT) gogalthorp composed:

> You have EFI BIOS and use the efi/boot partition.

Where did you find any information to tell you that?

> So you need not grub2 but grub2-efi

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#4

On 2014-07-17 13:56 (GMT) Wild Goose composed:

> I have an Asus netbook with a dual boot of Windows 7 and Opensuse 13.1.

> I made some changes with Yast to my grub2 settings, putting the OS
> selection timeout to zero seconds,
> and changing the default boot OS.

> When I tried to put the settings back they did not apply, and now I have
> no grub boot menu and my
> computer just boots straight into Windows with no option to choose Suse.

> In Yast I then changed the bootloader to grub rather than grub2 in the
> hope that I could get back to a boot menu
> with options of which OS to boot, but that hasn’t worked either.

> I can now only get into my Suse installation by booting off a USB stick
> with the DVD iso on it, dropping out of the
> installation process and selecting boot installed system.

> I’ve attached my partition table and some Yast screenshots.

> I’m wondering if the only way to fix this now is a reinstall, or does
> anyone have an alternative suggestion?

Nothing jumps at me making it obvious what your problem is. What I would try
is first changing the extended type from f to the long standard and always
valid 5. f has no reason for existence except in a Windows 98 system, and can
cause problems with various tools.

If it becomes necessary to reinstall, choose expert partitioning, delete sda3
and sda5, and make new partitions sda3 for / and sda5 for swap. Then you can
install bootloader to sda3 and it will matter little if Windows ever tries to
take control of the boot process. With / on sda3, Windows/legacy/standard MBR
boot code can be used, and whichever between sda1 and sda3 is active will
only determine what you see first at boot time. If it’s Windows, it’s a very
simple matter to switch the boot flag back from sda1 to sda3.
https://old-en.opensuse.org/Bugs/grub#How_does_a_PC_boot_.2F_How_can_I_set_up_a_working_GRUB.3F

Remember too, the Windows bootloader can chainload to a partition with Grub
installed. If you set that up, it’s easy to choose what you want to boot no
matter what bootloader has control.

> http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/fdisk.png]
>
> [image:
> http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/bootloader1.png]
>
> [image:
> http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/bootloader3.png]
>
> [image:
> http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/bootloader2.png]

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#5

From fdisk. it looks like there is a efi boot partition

#6

On 2014-07-17 20:56 (GMT) gogalthorp composed:

> mrmazda;2654534 Wrote:

>> On 2014-07-17 16:46 (GMT) gogalthorp composed:

>> > You have EFI BIOS and use the efi/boot partition.

>> Where did you find any information to tell you that?

> From fdisk. it looks like there is a efi boot partition

No such look to me. I have lots of 1b partitions, none of which have anything
to do with EFI. 7, f, 82 & 83 certainly aren’t EFI.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#7

Hi mrmazda,

already from your first post, i.e. the hardware that you’re using,
it looks like UEFI boot - I would say :wink:

Please do the following:
Boot off your USB stick - you wrote in your 1st post that this would be the only possible way to get into your openSUSE installation.
Open a terminal.
Become root (command ‘su’).
Say ‘parted -l’.
It may take up to a minute, or even a bit more, until you get the results.
Please post the output of that here.

Good luck
Mike

#8

If you boot in non-UEFI mode,
in the 3rd of your screenshots of your original post
‘Boot from Extended Partition’
should be checked.

#9

And in which case did you get the third of your screenshots:
after booting from USB - or after booting from your internal hard drive???

#10

Hi mrmazda,

no more replies?

Your Join Date (to this forum) of Dec 2008 tells that you have been using openSUSE a bit longer,
and a bit more.

Look, I’m not a guru.

But if you booted from the USB, YaST will as well run from that device (or the openSUSE on it),
and changes to the boot loader using YaST will only influence GRUB / GRUB2 on that USB - I would say.

I never had that kind of problem (I’m glad that I didn’t !).

But after all that I have read here, you would probably have to ‘chroot’ to your hard disk installation
in order to be able to really change a thing about your boot loader installation for that hard disk.

Good luck
Mike

#11

On 2014-07-18 22:16 (GMT) ratzi composed:

> Hi mrmazda,

> no more replies?

That I am not, and you do not appear to be, the OP, plus your total lack of
quotes posting style that makes it difficult to ascertain why you are writing
or who you are writing to, I found it a pointless waste of time trying to
continue replying to your posts.

> Your Join Date (to this forum) of Dec 2008 tells that you have been
> using openSUSE a bit longer, and a bit more.

Several years longer.

> Look, I’m not a guru.

> But if you booted from the USB, YaST will as well run from that device
> (or the openSUSE on it),
> and changes to the boot loader using YaST will only influence GRUB /
> GRUB2 on that USB - I would say.

If you know what you are doing, Grub Legacy is easy to use for any disk
regardless where booted from. Grub2 is a can of worms providing nothing I
need not provided by Grub Legacy. Thus I am able to avoid using or needing to
learn about much about it. YaST makes bootloader management easy for those
less knowledgable to manage their bootloader, but I have no such need.

> I never had that kind of problem (I’m glad that I didn’t !).

> But after all that I have read here, you would probably have to ‘chroot’
> to your hard disk installation

Chrooting to deal with any Grub is only necessary to run scripts. I use the
Grub Legacy shell, bypassing any need to use any scripts. Menu.lst I edit
directly when necessary, while I know how to use it directly and can boot
even when no menu.lst exists. I know enough to help those in need of
bootloader help only if they use Grub Legacy. If it becomes clear they are
using Grub2, there’s rarely any help I can provide beyond bringing up a
possibility of switching back to the easier to manage older bootloader.

> in order to be able to really change a thing about your boot loader
> installation for that hard disk.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#12

Nope. There is an easy fix.

or does anyone have an alternative suggestion?

Yes, but you need to come back to respond to those who would volunteer their precious time to help you.

#13

Hi Felix !

I’m not sitting at your keyboard, and I don’t know that much details about your system.
Trying to help in such a situation will frequently be a step by step approach.

Hi again!
But as I told, I’m not a guru. Linux was new to me then (probably in 2005 or 2006).

Yes, legacy GRUB is easy to use, and I do use it, and I enjoy it.

However, I have a triple boot, two Linux systems, one win7.

So now if I boot one of the two Linux systems - from which of the two Linux volumes GRUB (or let’s say menu.lst) then actually is loaded ?

And if I boot a live Linux system from a USB drive or from a CD, GRUB (or GRUB2) will surely not be loaded from my hard disk,
otherwise it would not be possible to boot such a live system in the case that there is no Linux present on the internal hard disk at all
(but only windows).

I didn’t have any need for GRUB2 until now.
I’m glad of that :wink:

Yes and no.
One anyway seems to need some knowledge about the basics.

Yes, but your menu.lst has to be on some device.

And, there is only one (or a single) menu.lst that will be read at boot.

Best wishes
Mike

#14

On 2014-07-19 00:36 (GMT) ratzi composed:

> I’m not sitting at your keyboard, and I don’t know that much details
> about your system.

Systems. It requires a database to keep track of what’s on all of them.

> Trying to help in such a situation will frequently be a step by step
> approach.

What situation? Wild Goose started this thread. Why is it you seem to be
trying to help me instead of Wild Goose?

> I have a triple boot, two Linux systems, one win7.

What’s your point? I have more than 30 multiboot systems, meaning systems
each with more than one installed operating system. Most here have well over
half a dozen, some more than 30, very few with as few as three.

> So now if I boot one of the two Linux systems - from which of the two
> Linux volumes GRUB (or let’s say menu.lst) then actually is loaded ?

You tell me! On most installations here, booting begins from a Grub
installation that is on neither

MBR, nor
/, nor
/boot, nor
extended partition

IOW, I first install Grub to a primary partition that gets mounted neither to
any / nor to any /boot, regardless the location of the kernel and initrd I
choose to load at boot time. In addition, each distro installation gets a
Grub installed, so that it can be chainloaded to instead of relying on my
master Grub installation and complicating it with multiple stanza for each
installed system. The master is complicated enough with one for each
installation, plus stanzas for initiating installation of various distros,
and various memtest versions.

> And, there is only -one- (or a single) menu.lst that will be read at
> boot.

Unless you use one to chainload another, or a third, or more.

Again, why me? If you want a conversation with me, you should do it
elsewhere, not in Wild Goose’s thread, or at least, change to a different
topic to distinguish it from his problem.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#15

Here is the result Mike:

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/parted.png

Those screenshots were taken after booting off the USB stick

Sorry for the delay in responding, my USB stick went down and then I was away for a few days.

By the way, I’m not familiar with this UEFI protocol, I can’t see any option in my BIOS to turn it off or on.

#16

My fault.

I was tired.

And probably because the OP was offline for quite some time.

Greets
Mike

#17

You can’t turn it EFI off you can boot to legacy but it looks like you are dual booting and the partitioning is MBR (ie MSDOS) and there seems to be a EFI boot (Partition 2) not MBR boot . So you have a mess.

If you don’t want to use EFI you have to totally redo everything . Wipe disk and install in legacy mode setting up a MBR boot not a EFI boot. Note for Windows also. You can in theory have a MBR boot and a EFI boot on the same drive but practically it is hard to do reliably and not all EFI BIOS support it.

Also it looks like you may have a second drive you should show all hardware.

#18

Hi Wild_Goose,

OK fine, now we see the size of the partitions in MB / GB, which is much more readable for a human.
What is your partition No. 2 of size 16.8MB about?
Did you encrypt your windows partitions using some windows tools?
(You don’t have to give the password here ;)).

[quote="“Wild_Goose,post:15,topic:101815”]

Those screenshots were taken after booting off the USB stick.[/QUOTE]

OK, this doesn’t appear to be UEFI booting.
Reason:
Both, ‘fdisk -l’ and ‘parted -l’ tell that you have a partition table of type ‘msdos’,
instead of one of the type of ‘gpt’, which would usually be needed for UEFI booting.

But why did you cut the second screen shot just after
‘Model: TOSHIBA TransMemory (scsi)’ ??

And: please don’t send screen shots of the output of a terminal !!
This doesn’t make sense.

(1) If you run the terminal from a desktop like KDE/Gnome,
copy the output in the terminal using Ctrl-Shift-C key (or the ‘edit’ pulldown menu of the terminal window).
Then paste it here, select the pasted output/text using the mouse, and click on the ‘#’ symbol.
(2) if you don’t run the terminal from a desktop,
a command like

parted -l > (filename)

would print the output of ‘parted -l’ into a text file of name (filename),
which may even be a file on an USB drive.
From that file you can then easily copy the output afterwards in order to paste it here.

OK, back to the topic.

In the following, the address was wrong (I didn’t address it to you), but that was you in the end:

or could influence them, if the CD/DVD or your USB was writable.

Good luck
Mike

#19

On 2014-07-21 20:06 (GMT) gogalthorp composed:

> there seems to be a EFI boot (Partition 2)

What make you think that?

Both
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/parted.png
and
http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm264/moondustjunky/fdisk.png
show type 1b.

Type 1b is hidden FAT32, which became common for hidden OEM restore
partitions when OEMs stopped providing installation media with each PC sold,
but was previously and still can be used simply for conforming to the DOS and
W9x necessity to have only one primary “visible” to DOS and/or Windows per HD.

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

#20

Hi Felix
Can you please log into the web interface and check you private messages…