You were very cautious – and got there in the end 
now new problem comes…
last night when the grub becomes normal, i could see “vista”“opensuse 11.0” “opensuse 11.0 failsafe” three items. I highlighted vista and entered it, did some jobs before shutdown.
This afternoon I turned on the computer, couldn’t see GRUB again. it stopped at a black screen:
GRUB Loading stage1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait…
Error 5
_
ha…
searing on the web, many results come out with regard to Ubuntu, little with SUSE.
This is a pain in the proverbial.
You said at the start, you have 2 sata hard drives.
I’m assuming Vista is on one and Suse the other.
I’m guessing you have installed the bootloader to the Vista drive. DON’T
Repair your Vista boot.
Set you Suse drive to be first boot in BIOS and install grub bootloader to the MBR of the Suse drive.
Check here
Partitioning/Install Guide - openSUSE Forums
I can only assume Vista is doing something. But even so you should be able to have Grub on the Vista drive. BUT seeing you have 2 drives, why not do as I describe.
Yeah, I’m doing this…
here’s a link that shares the same opinion.
GRUB error 5; Ubuntu replacing Suse with Win dual boot - Linux Forums
I set the WD hdd(/dev/sdb) where suse locates as the 1st boot device, (is this regarded as primary master?)
plus, I want suse to recognize all my vista partitions(they’re dynamic), is it possible without third party soft?
Thanks …
When discs are SATA there is no Primary Master / Slave etc…
Thing is to know which disc is which and what is on what, then when you see them in the partitioner or installer or whatever, you know where you want things.
You may previously have had the Vista disc as first boot - in which case - during Suse install, Suse would see Vista as sda and the Suse disc as sdb
Now, if you change Suse disc to 1st boot, I’m fairly certain the Suse installer will see the Vista disc as sdb.
Ideally, you should start by installing Vista (but I guess it was some pre-installed cr*p). Then switch boot priority to your other HD as first, and install Suse.
I checked on the dynamic, as I wasn’t too sure what you meant. Anyway it sounds like there is support for this in Suse, though from what I read in other forums, it has been a problem.
You do realise it’s windows that is making things difficult for you. It’s a pet hate of mine - M$ are a bunch of sad asses. They just want to Vendor Lock you to their OS. And all this shipping of PC’s without a proper install disc should be illegal.
If you absolutely have to use windows I would always say, make sure you buy the OS install disc. Ideally self build and get the OEM ver.
If you have problems. I would suggest a re-install of Suse with the Suse drive as first boot. Keep your /home as is (do not format). Make sure you set mount points (see this guide I linked you to).
NB*Make sure Vista boots from it’s HD. You should restore it’s MBR and check it boots itself. Set it as boot device just to see.
my university provide a free copy of vista downloadable from msdn e-academic site. I builded my desktop myself and installed vista last Nov.
however, now I still cannot enter vista but only see “rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader (hd0,1)+1”,
guess I should change “hd0” to “hd1” now, because the original “sda” is now actually “sdb”, though it appears as “sda” as before in SUSE device list.
correct?
Yes, it is…
sda and sdb do not exchange in device list, but “hd1” changed to “hd0” in menu.lst
so vista should be on hd1 now. sda is just a name.
and all vista partitions magically mounts all right. really good
now is a “splash” problem: in system->boot->spalsh, I set “yes”, but during suse booting up, I see no splash image, only black screen white chars…
Yast - system - etc/sysconfigEditor
then from the tree
system boot - splash
=yes
indeed I set yes that way.
and theme to be opensuse (no other choice)
there should be some splash image, maybe it’s lost somehow?
do you mean you still have no splash? Many of us prefer it that way you know.
post contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst
why prefer that way?
the info flashes so quickly that you hardly see anything…
maybe it’s due to I changed the language to zh-gh2312; indeed the problem has been ever since. but if no change of language, those .txt.doc would be a dreadful mess…
is there a possible way to keep the lang as English but avoid irrecognizable chars?
Not sure what you are on about. You changed what lang and what .txt files do you mean. Have I missed something in this thread?
why prefer that way?
Because, although it does move quickly, we can see error messages.
after I set simplified chinese as secondary language, the problem remains.
chinese characters displays right in firefox; and all file names containing chinese characters displays right; but if I open a .txt file using gedit, all the chinese chars in the content are shown as óÓÃÉÏÃæÌᵜµÄÐòÁкŰ²×°