I was wondering if anyone else has the same problem I experienced… I did a fresh install of Suse 11.1 beta 5 but the GRUB did not work as expected. I use GRUB for a dual boot since I still need B. Gates XP… It looks like the GRUB is the same as the one used by SUSE 11. And I set it up exactly as when I used 11. But when I do either a soft reboot or a hard one it keeps rebooting the computer… Any help would be greatly appreciated…
Thanx
Charlie
As a help I can tell You never use beta software as Your main system 
That’s why it’s called BETA :sarcastic: By the way download RC1 11.1 
Please describe further. Probably relatively easy to fix, once we know what the actual problem is.
Do you mean that when you turn the machine off then on again, it starts up then reboots itself w/o you doing anything? Or that it loads the grub menu but when you make a selection/hit Enter it reboots? Or you don’t see the grub menu at all, it just restarts? Or . . .?
If you get the grub menu and the reboot happens after making a selection, hit the Escape key first; that will take you into a text version of the menu. Then select/hit Enter; do you see an error message?
I installed openSUSE 11.1 RC 1 today in runlevel 3 via the commands
zypper ref
zypper dup
SUSEconfig
After a reboot, the entries in menu.lst read the following:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Thu Nov 27 17:27:21 CET 2008
default 3
timeout 5
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,2)/boot/message
##YaST - activate
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-3
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-3-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500BEVE-00WZT0_WD-WXC408824139-part3 showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-3-pae
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-3
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-3-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500BEVE-00WZT0_WD-WXC408824139-part3 showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-3-pae
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: xen###
title Xen -- openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-4
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/xen.gz
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-4-xen root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD2500BEVE-00WZT0_WD-WXC408824139-part3 splash=silent showopts vga=0x317
module /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-4-xen
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
I know that this is pretty easy to fix, and I’m positive I can resolve this by myself. The reason I wrote this post is, that I was wondering if anybody else observed this behaviour, and if so, wether or not it is neccessary to file a bug report on this issue.
You didn’t reply with what is happening exactly, so all I can add at this point is that menu.lst is set up to boot from Windows by default. The menu.lst file is modified any time the kernel is upgraded; can’t say if there was a problem with that script w/o seeing the previous menu.lst and possibly some other data. I have seen on rare occasion the script get confused, but the reason is hard to pin down.
Oh, sorry. My bad, but thanks for taking care. And again sorry for causing confusion, since I am not the thread starter. I just had a problem with the GRUB bootloader on openSUSE 11.1 RC1 so I thought this thread would be the right place for seeking advice.
The problem after the update (coming from Beta 5) was, that both the failsafe and the “normal” entry for booting openSUSE read the same, as you can see. So on either choice, the failsafe mode was started. At first, I didn’t even notice. The only hint for this (Failsafe-mode) was this almost unnoticeable yet unfamiliar resolution.
I resolved this by getting a new configuration proposal in the YaST2 bootloader configuration dialog. For now, I seem to be the only one experiencing this messed up menu.lst.
@MiB1982 -
Yep, I missed that you weren’t the OP. And I didn’t scroll right, so also missed the failsafe arguments replication (my excuse is that it’s turkey day here, so I’ve been distracted). Anyway, sounds like you got it fixed via YaST. For ref, you could do the same thing with a text editor as root.
Hi Mingus;
After I install opensuse11.1 beta 5, and restart the computer after the bios checks I see the the initial line grub 1.5, the the computer goes into a reboot and starts cycling through the bios checks again until I shutdown the computer… I made several attempts at trying to configure the GRUB to work with 11.1 but each attempt was the same result… So I re installed 11.0 and the GRUB bootloader works fine… I should mention the using GRUB w/ 11 I install it to the master boot record. Since this is the simplest way for me to get it to work… Anyway any thoughts on this would be appreciated… I an tempted to try the next version of 11.1 now that it is available.
Upgrading with 11.1 RC1 is probably best - you don’t want to be chasing a problem that fixes itself in the newest release. The final release of 11.1 is due in ~3 weeks; you might want to wait until then to upgrade.
If you do try it again now with RC1, at the Boot Loader installation step manually go into the dialog and under the Boot Loader Installation tab, check the boxes for both the MBR and the root partition. If you then encounter the same booting problem, you may be able to boot using the DVD boot menu selection “Boot from Hard Disk”. Then to fix the problem, once you are in openSUSE, open a terminal window, switch to root, do the following commands and post the output back here. With this data we can give you instructions for the fix.
fdisk -lu
cat /boot/grub/device.map
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
cat /etc/grub.conf
If you are not able to boot using the “Boot from Hard Disk” selection, we’ll need to give you some additional instructions.
i am having a similar problem except i have SATA hdd and i can’t get windows xp to boot, keeps saying nt loader is missing :
now i am still a little bit of a linux noobie, but i have never seen my hdd labeled by serial number in a boot loader, it has always been sda1 sda2, how can i get my grub loader to not use by-id as the sda1 or w/e worked perfectly with ubuntu and mandrive.
i am using the newest version of 11.1 as of mid may '09
Device Map:
sudo cat /boot/grub/device.map
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd1) /dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3250620AS_9QE1TLC9
(hd0) /dev/sda
Menu List:
sudo cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
root's password:
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Fri May 29 02:29:10 UTC 2009
default 2
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message
##YaST - activate
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-9
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-9-default resume=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3250620AS_9QE218ZP-part5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-9-default
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-9
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-9-default showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresumeedd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-9-default
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows Xp
map (hd1) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-9-default splash=silent showopts vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-9-default
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: floppy###
title Floppy
rootnoverify (fd0)
chainloader +1
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-9-default showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresumeedd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-9-default
Grub.conf
sudo cat /etc/grub.conf
setup --stage2=/boot/grub/stage2 --force-lba (hd0) (hd0,5)
quit