I agree that this is a problem in making every NTFS partition a boot selection option in your grub menu.lst file during the installation of openSUSE. Someone should consider asking help from please_try_again in the openSUSE forums on how to find a bootable Windows partition and add that fuction to the openSUSE installer. Here is a pointer to the findgrub article here.
The basic situation is that there is normally is only ONE booting copy of Windows, so why would you create three or four menu entries due to the number of NTFS partitions found on a hard drive? Finally, just as indicated by Jean-Daniel Dodin, If one of those partitions in the restore partition and a user boots it, it could be all over for the user copy of Windows, for the openSUSE install and for ever getting this user to try openSUSE again. Be for warned about this very serious problem.
I request that anyone that agrees with this issue vote up the problem on openFATE.
> Finally, just as
> indicated by Jean-Daniel Dodin, If one of those partitions in the
> restore partition and a user boots it, it could be all over for the user
> copy of Windows, for the openSUSE install and for ever getting this
> user to try openSUSE again. Be for warned about this very serious
> problem.
IMO, that’s a bug report, not a feature request. It should go to a Bugzilla.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
IMO, that’s a bug report, not a feature request. It should go to a Bugzilla.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Hello robin_listas, if you select to boot from your restore partition in grub, you might consider it a bug and so I am not sure it is a feature request to fix this issue. I actually had this happen to me, but as luck would have it, I was installing openSUSE on an external hard drive and the restore process starting formatting the external hard drive. I guess it was confused over who HD0 was. lol! In only caused me to start over loading openSUSE, but it could have been bad. So quit your quibbling and vote this problem up for me.
Hello james ! And thank you for making me a “glorious beacon of light” just a couple hours before my birthday. - But pleaaaase ! Don’t say happy birthday now, as I am superstitious.
To that topic, the Window RE (Recovery environment) partition is supposed to have the partition ID 0x27. This is what Microsoft uses and recommends: Recommended BIOS-Based Disk-Partition Configurations. I don’t think the openSUSE installer would add such a partition in the Grub menu, since it is regular but “hidden” NTFS. If it does, that would indeed be a severe bug. However some hardware manufacturers (like HP) seem to use ID 0x07 (normal HPFS/NTFS) for the Windows RE partition on their products. The reason why they do that is beyond my understanding but the blame goes to them.
On my Dell computer it added the Windows 7 recovery partition too. I just edited the menu.lst file to a different name; which I cannot post here because of the language…lol
So some of us are smart enough to avoid this problem, but oops, I guess I am not since I almost did my self in a while back and was only saved by the fact the restore program is dumb, as me I guess. So vote the problem up and lets see what happens, and Happy Birthday please_try_again. Ops again, just read this tomorrow please_try_again.
I was not trying to step on anybodies feet, I understand that it is a problem and will vote! The only reason I changed it is because my son uses the computer for Combat Arms and he needs Windoze 7. Sorry if I have offended you! I did not mean to offend anyone!!! Probably one to many beer…lol
I was not trying to step on anybodies feet, I understand that it is a problem and will vote! The only reason I changed it is because my son uses the computer for Combat Arms and he needs Windoze 7. Sorry if I have offended you! I did not mean to offend anyone!!! Probably one to many beer…lol
Drink away my friend etech97, you have not offended me today. I hope that I can say the same thing as well.
OK. I voted up, despite I do not personally use that YaST module (I guess the installer does). I agree that the possibility to check/unckeck boot entries in YaST wouldn’t hurt, provided openSUSE reads/updates /boot/grub/menu.lst in both ways: the changes you applied manually are refelected in YaST and vice versa, as it doesn’t always work that way. I would also like to get rid of the ###Don’t change this comment - YaST2 identifier:" lines in menu.lst. There are really more clever and efficient ways to parse a file (!). Not to mention that all foreign (not openSUSE) kernel boot entries usually vanished after a kernel update. This doesn’t concern Windows and other chainload entries.
On 2010-11-21 05:06, jdmcdaniel3 wrote:
>
>> IMO, that’s a bug report, not a feature request. It should go to a
>> Bugzilla.
>>
>> –
>> Cheers / Saludos,Hello robin_listas, if you select to boot from your restore partition in
> grub, you might consider it a bug and so I am not sure it is a feature
> request to fix this issue.
Bugzillas get more attention than fates. IMO fates are just ignored.
> I actually had this happen to me, but as
> luck would have it, I was installing openSUSE on an external hard drive
> and the restore process starting formatting the external hard drive.
Then you have to open another bug report against your computer’s
manufacturer, because the restore partition has to warn the user that it is
going to restore, format and destroy existing data. Mine does.
Just imagine a “clueless” Windows user (without any Linux) starts it and
destroys windows. That’s a problem of the restore partition, not ours.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
robin_listas, in my case this is a Dell Latitude E6400 Laptop which is my work laptop. I normally install openSUSE on an external hard drive to make no modifications to my official work installation. Including the restore partition, there are two partitions on the internal hard drive. With the normal openSUSE install, both partition got an entry in the grub menu.lst file. The restore partition is first and Windows XP is second. After loading openSUSE and getting it to boot twice, I selected the first entry for the Windows partition to see if it worked, which went straight to the restore partition. Intermediately, the screen went blank and my external hard drive was being formatted. Dell is a name brand computer and so I would not think the results are so abnormal. It appears that normally you activate the restore process from your BIOS or using a separate boot disk which may include any warnings I did not see. So, the openSUSE install should only put one Windows load option in the menu.lst and should make some attempt to determine the actual Windows boot drive, in my opinion. And as to if you think this is a problem or a feature request, I can not say, I just decided to piggy back on the openFATE article as it hit a nerve with me on the subject.
> Grub menu, since it is regular but “hidden” NTFS. If it does, that would
> indeed be a severe bug. However some hardware manufacturers (like HP)
> seem to use ID 0x07 (normal HPFS/NTFS) for the Windows RE partition on
> their products.
That is so. I just looked in my Compaq laptop (which is a cheaper HP
nowdays) and indeed, it has three type 7 partitions, at least two of them
bootable. It is quite difficult to know which one is the “real” one,
perhaps the one marked bootable (if it is the first time you install linux).
> The reason why they do that is beyond my understanding
> but the blame goes to them.
Indeed.
I wonder what would happen if I mark the rescue partition as hidden? Ah,
no, I think I can’t. There is a small windows boot partition, which has to
be visible. There is the “C:” partition, obviously visible. The third one
is a recovery partition, which not only has the rescue data but the restore
backups, which is usable from inside windows. All three have to be visible,
I think, I don’t have a differentiated rescue partition I can hide.
So in my case, that’s why.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
> And as to if you think this is a
> problem or a feature request, I can not say, I just decided to piggy
> back on the openFATE article as it hit a nerve with me on the subject.
Yes, that I can understand, but you see, that Fate is about commenting out
a line or two in the boot menu using YaST, confortably, not about not
adding the entries which is what you said you want. That’s a different
“feature”, and I believe you will get more attention if you report it as a
bug, as it destroyed your data.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)
- But pleaaaase ! Don’t say happy birthday now, as I am superstitious.