Opensuse 10.3 & XP dual boot repair

[lordna]

I have Opensuse10.3 and XP setup with 2 seperate drives and at the moment this works fine.

However, I have a problem with Windows (don’t we all!) which means I will probably need to reinstall or repair it. The problem is with the windows installer and there seems to be no other way of fixing it.

I seem to remember that if I reinstall Windows this could affect my GRUB settings and so I then won’t be able to get into OpenSuse?

Is this a good time to also update my OpenSuse to 11.0?

[swerdna]

@lordna

Is this a good time to also update my OpenSuse to 11.0?

I think any excuse is a good one. Ver 11.0 is a great distro provided you steer clear of KDE4 (unless you want to participate in the beta experiment – that’s what KDE4 is for). I hear the best about it for KDE3.5 and Gnome.

Re the windows install and Grub: It’s simple to reinitialise Grub – see here:
GRUB Boot Multiboot openSUSE Windows (2000, XP, Vista) using the Grub bootloader.
You could use that if you reinstall windows. But wou don’t need it if you install ver 11.0 after windows.

[jbb]

@lordna

I have Opensuse10.3 and XP setup with 2 seperate drives and at the moment this works fine.

However, I have a problem with Windows (don’t we all!) which means I will probably need to reinstall or repair it. The problem is with the windows installer and there seems to be no other way of fixing it.

I seem to remember that if I reinstall Windows this could affect my GRUB settings and so I then won’t be able to get into OpenSuse?

Is this a good time to also update my OpenSuse to 11.0?

This has a two part answer; install XP and then re-establish GRUB. The XP install will not lose your SUSE install.
Boot from the XP install disk.
Do the format thing after choosing the original XP partition for install.
After XP settles boot the SUSE install disc.
Choose Install. Get to the page with the choices “install”, “upgrade” and “other.” Choose “other.”
Choose “Boot Installed System.” Log in as root. Do “Yast2/System/Boot Loader” and check for the presence of the Windows choice for your original XP install.
The bottom left corner gives options. Choose install into the MBR option. When the fancy popup comes OK the reinstall of the saved MBR data.
Finally, hit “Finish” and reboot.
If XP will not boot from the GRUB menu, if the GRUB boot choices screen recyles, boot the XP install disk and choose Repair. After the login and prompt comes, run “fixboot”. If that doesn’t do the job, repeat the XP install to Repair and then run “fixmbr”. That should boot to XP. Repeat the SUSE/GRUB instructions above.
If your machine is not broken these last steps should not be necessary.