OpenSUSE Install Wiped Out Other Linux Installs

Man, I was really hoping this would not happen. I took great care in the Partitioning section, working from the left side, to designate which partition I wanted to install to. I think it got that right. There were some swap partitions already set up, and I suppose it latched onto one of those as well.

The 1.5 Grub boot process is rather nice looking. Lots of green, whereas I prefer blue tints myself. But now none of the other Linux distros installed previously will boot, always a file missing. That is with three hard drives and 14 partitions involved. Got to play nice, you know, in order to get along. Now I’ve got a lot of reinstalls to do just to get back where I thought I was.

Can’t condemn OpenSUSE outright for that, but it needs fixing. Need to be precisely clear about what partition is to be used for what, which ones to ignore, and which one or ones to reformat, before going further with the install. No one Linux distro can presume to own the PC in question. If you don’t know how to do this, look at the manual mode with the partitioner in Ubuntu. Also need to be able to designate which partition is to be treated as boot. That is covered in Ubuntu as well.

The new version of Ubuntu even lets you pick one or more 1st partitions where Grub will install itself, just in case what is considered sda1 or hda1 is not actually the first drive (this has happened on my PC due to the way the BIOS treats a mix of EIDE and SATA drives).

Not claiming that Ubuntu is in any way better than OpenSUSE, but to me, their approach to manual partitioning is more precise. Their automate modes of either just replacing the old operation system or splitting drive space into a dual boot configuration probably suits beginners more. I prefer the manual mode myself, but the manual mode has to cooperate with my needs. That is all I am asking for.

Hang on a second - it’s very unlikely that SUSE (or you) have managed to total that many partitions in one install.

Much more likely that you’ve just overwritten the bootloader, and can’t access the other installs without fixing it.

But take a breath, don’t panic - you needn’t reinstall until you’re sure it’s necessary.

This can - and does - happen to any distro, and it’s normally quite simple to fix.

Load suse, get to a root terminal, and run


fdisk -l
mount
grub
find /boot/grub/menu.lst
find /boot/grub/grub.cfg
quit

Paste the output here.

You may want to consider you got something wrong. There are no issues that I know of. The installer will only do what you let it.
Are you sure it wiped everything, have you booted a live cd like Parted Magic to check and see.

Why would you have more than 1 swap partition? That’s what you seem to be implying anyway.

openSUSE boot loader allows installing grub on any partition in the system, MBR or even a flash/floppy drive, which you would have noticed if you actually examined the boot loader configuration during the installation.

Also the openSUSE partitioner allows completely manual control without any suggestions if you choose to do so - apparently you didn’t.

It’s all so simple. Prepare the system BEFORE install, i.e. if you know linux, you know you need at least one partition.
If you run several linuces, then label the partitions, so you can mount them to the same places everywhere in any install.
Then there’s a big button in the partitioner, saying ‘Import Mount Points’. It will drop current proposal, and read in partitions and mount points if possible.
If not, there’s ‘Rescan Drives’. This will allow you to create the mount points for existing partitions, incl. the new one created for the new install.

Removing entire disks requires quite some actions, so I assume that only the proper bootloader configuration has to be done.

Please post /boot/grub/menu.lst

Oh yes, lecture, lecture lecture from those that presume to know. I’ve installed Windows thousands of times in my career, and Linux Distros hundreds of times in just the last few years. My hard drives were more than adequately prepared using GParted and Windows Administrator (when dealing with Windows). Admittedly, OpenSUSE is a first for me, and it is different, noted in some rather striking ways, color and otherwise. I use to like KDE when using early Mandrakes, but Ubuntu has shown me that there is nothing wrong with GNOME either (I tried two other flavore of Ubuntu, then decided to stick with the primary version).

Unfortunately, my presumption that the partitioner got it right when I tried to designate a root partition has proved wrong. For some reason, it went for an off-partition whuch only had about 21 GBs. OpenSUSE even insisted on using Ext4 in place of Ext3. At present I prefer Ext3, since I can get a Windows driver for Ext2, which I know can access the Ext3s as well. Don’t know anything about Ext4 yet.

So the system was prepared. Should not really be necessary, but coincidental with having three other installs of Linux Distros, which had no trouble with each other. Know how to tailor fstab so that as the sole user, I have access to everything. Noted with interest that OpenSUSE automatically put the NTFS partitions under /windows, so they are available. Nothing about the partitions specific to Linux, and after the install, I looked around a bit, figured out how to get Sun’s VirtualBox install for 11.2, but it would not install due to a Repository already existing. Asked help, but no response. Finally found my way to where the Repository is, identified the one with the problem, deleted it, got VirtualBox to install, but did not know where to find it. Finally got a word of advice, so it is in place.

Now I need the VDIs I’ve already created under VirtualBox elsewhere. Trouble is, no immediate access under OpenSUSE, so to save time, decided to reboot into one of the other Linux installs. Oops! Grub says file missing. Try another. Oops! Same message. Wonder what file it is referring to? Try the one remaining one. Oops! Same failure. Posted the start of this thread. Tried to find a way to Repair the problem with one of the other installs from a LiveCD. Heck, this is not going as scripted, might just as well reinstall Ubuntu and have at the VDIs and menu.lst file in one go. I’d deleted one NTFS volume on my 3rd drive and adjusted an Ext3 before it in size, then created a new Ext3, so while there ought to be content still in the first one, the UUID is now probably changed. But the new partition created is blank, so I just installed into it.

See, I just try to give the bare facts if what transpired, and people jump to say I’m somehow at fault. I spell the whole thing out, and I’m sure someone will now say I’m just trying to show of some level of superiority. That’s not the case. If I have problems, I am certain others will as well. Just because you did not, does not nullify my experience to date.

Hi
User Knurpht asked for you menu.lst info, can you provide? Also the
output from fdisk -l will help I’m sure.

On my netbook I normally create an extended partition and a
separate /boot and / for each of the three I have installed. Then just
load via;

Title <some_linux>
root (hdx,y)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst


Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.37-0.1-default
up 3 days 0:23, 2 users, load average: 0.21, 0.15, 0.11
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.18

I decided to begin this time around with OpenSUSE, and get it on the intended partition, Tried two DVDs I burned, one got an error partway through the install process, the other would not boot. So I went back to the LiveCD disk I made. I did note with the DVD that it offered a couple of repair or recovery options, which is good, assuming that they really do the job. Again, the LiveCD kept the monitor resolution at its max, but I have a magnifying glass, so read my options more carefully. I finally ventured to the Create Partition Table, which under Ubuntu would completely wipe the hard drive. Not here, and thus I finally got my elections through. Change default screen resolution from the 1680Xwhatever down to 1024X768, which is close to my max. Just bigger on a 22" wide screen.

Anyway, on reboot, when the screen changed resolution, the mouse pointer disappeared. Seemed like it was down to pixel size. With difficulty, I worked it around and tried to find a way to increase the mouse size or at least get it back. I think it was under Configuration that I finally found a mouse reference, and it was set at NONE. I reset it to PS/2. and on the next reboot, the mouse stayed up. Wasn’t easy to do with an invisible mouse.

I got VirtualBox again, and had already worked out a way to get the VDIs folder copied over to my account. But VirtualBox got an error, and it looked like I needed to run its Setup again. Only it would not run, as I was missing the Make, and a lot of other things. I found all these listed at the Sun Website for VirtualBox, used the Install Software option, typed each named dependency in the search box. went down the list to the highlighted option, indicated that I wanted to install it, and with all then included, clicked on Apply. Sun’s website also gave me instructions for finding which group ID was for USB, and making a needed entry in /etc/fstab. I’m in a Windows 2000 client right now, using its Firefox to get here and right this. Haven’t even run the GuestAdditions yet. Oh, and I did find out how to change from the slightly harsh black and green color scheme to an easier blue and white. Comes under Apperances.

I think I am going to like OpenSUSE, now that I am beginning to get a bit used to it. Added Sun VirtualBox and Gnome Terminal to my favorites, meaning both now appear when you click on Computer in the bottom left corner. Sort of suggesting of Windows in that regard. No wonder some have mentioned that OpenSUSE might be appealing to the Windows’ crowd. True, if it came pre-configured on their PCs. But face it, who would like even Windows if they had to set it up from scratch themselves?

Oh, since this is my PC, I will be tailoring /etc/fstab to automatically mount all my hard drives when I boot up. Really not that hard to do, when you work out what has to go into that file. But finding specifics on what works in /etc/fstab proved sort of hard to do. For the other non-NTFS partitions, its sort of a matter of seeing how the root drive (/) entry is set up. These are almost always with regards to the UUID= method now, but in place of that, you can use the device designation, such as /dev/sda1 as one example.

If you are not really sure of what it is that I am relating to, then it may be too soon for you to try. You mess up /etc/fstab, you may have to start over, maybe from scratch.

In case it might interest anyone, I’ve been observing a very strange and very annoying behaviour during and after Linux setups on different machines with several harddisks. What appears to be the first harddisk in grub (hd0 or sda) becomes the second one (sdb) after rebooting. I guess I don’t need to describe you the mess, nor to tell you how to fix fstab and grub issues. The point is that Linux (all distros) seems to act more and more randomly with hardware. I cannot tell that I like the way it names network devices either. What is eth0 in today’s installation could pretty much become eth1 tomorrow , depending on the order network devices are detected each time. Nowadays it seems to do the same with harddisks. As far as I can tell, I never had the problem with SATA disks. It occurs with SATA + IDE, several IDE on 2 different controlers … and what sounds completely absurd : 2 or more IDE on the same controller. Also the order of SATA disks may vary whether in legacy IDE or AHCI mode. Changing that BIOS setting on mainboards which offer that choice could alter harddisks order and so device names under Linux. Allthough in that later case, you would know the reason. It’s almost impossible to track down because it’s not logically reproductible. It happens or not. While installing Linux on some machine, I can never tell in advance on which devices the system is going to end up after rebooting. I shoud add that most of these configurations are extremely simple, no RAID, no LVM, nothing like that (and that I haven’t smoked a joint in more than twenty years. Please don’t answer: that’s why! :wink: ). Until I get a clear explanation about this behaviour, I will say that Linux does things randomly. BTW, I never get such a mess with Unix. I bought a couple SATA disks yesterday to replace some IDEs, because I thought it might feel nicer not to have to rewrite fstab, menu.lst or grub.cfg (for Grub2) any time, without knowing their content in advance (wich makes scripting more complicated).

I experience none of these issues, not ever.

I also encountered situations where 2 differents Linux installed on the same machine in several partitions on two harddrives (also sharing some partitions like /tmp /home and swap) used different device names. I’m not talking about using ide or ata drivers. Just everything that was on sda under Ubuntu went suddenly on sdb under openSUSE or vice versa. Like I said, I never experienced such issues on system using only SATA disks … actually not quite. I did if I used SATA in legacy mode (IDE), reboot, switch to AHCI, reboot. Unfortunately I already had to do that for some OS not supporting AHCI (or supporting only AHCI) . It makes installations a little bit trickier, but I can live with that, allthough I’m starting to replace my IDE disks one by one. I’m just paying extra care while installing to make sure that I choose the right harddisk, as their partitioning is sometimes identical. If I happen to pick the wrong one, I could also pretend afterwards that openSUSE install wiped out other Linux installs, as it would be the consequence of such a mistake. That’s why I thought I would report this issue in that thread.

There is no substitute for good house keeping. Well structured, well thought out partition tables will make life much easier.