Help!
I have installed Suse 11.1 withWindows XP. Suse was working fine but the PC had defaulted to boot Suse and I do more work in Windows (on this machine), so I tried to alter the boot sequence (as I have done in Suse 10.3 a few times, and now the boot jambs up before the splash screen (after the Bios lists). The screen is blank with a dash (minus sign) in the top left corner.
How do I get the Boot loader working again please?
To change the boot sequence I used YAST and the Boot set up
There were 3 entries there:
Suse 11.1 as default
Can’t remember the middle selection
Windows XP
I moved Windows up to the top line and set it as default, then rebooted to my problem.
Can I use the Suse 11.1 DVD somehow to set this up again?
I have tried the rescue system and logged in as root and used fdisk -l to list the following
/dev/sda1 1 8476 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 8476 19475 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 8476 8737 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 8738 8999 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/devsda7 9000 11610 63 Linux
/dev/sda8 11610 19457 83 Linux
I notice that sda1 and sda2 have the same end/start - is that right?
Thanks, this link is helpful.
I tried the boot from the DVD and it booted into Suse without offering any partitions. While there I tried to reverse my previous changes to the boot sequence and tried re-booting, but the same blank screen was back.
I have looked at another option on the link you gave Reinstall Grub in the Master Boot Record and link it to the existing Grub menu in openSUSE
From the root loging, typing
grub
find /boot/grub/menu.lst
it returns (hd0,6)
But I am afraid to proceed with this in case I destroy my windows partition.
Will these recovery procedures protect my Windows or could I loose it? I don’t mind loosing the Suse installation as it’s still new and not used, but not the Windows partition. But right now I would like to learn how to repair the system so I don’t loose either.
I did notice in booting from the DVD using the rescue method I was offered a recovery of the boot sector.
I’m looking at the Boot Loader settings again having booted back into Suse using the DVD.
At present I have in the Section Management:
OpenSUSE 11.1
Failsafe OpenSUSE
Windows
Looking under the tab “Boot Loader Installation” I have the following set.
Boot from Boot Partition
Boot from Extended Partition (checked)
Boot from Master Boot Record
Boot from Root Partition
Custom Boot Partition (/dev/sda2) checked
If I open “Other” and select Propose New Configuration it drops Windows from the list and shows
OpenSUSE 11.1
Failsafe OpenSUSE
Kernel-2.6.27-7
I wonder if any of this helps - I am scared to try any of these options without some expert help.
In the screen you described you can edit your grub things without having to edit anythin in the konsole. You can make Windows XP your default boot option here. Just highlight the XP entry and press ‘Make Default’ (Bottom right I think). Never had any problems with it.
You can make a backup of you grub menu with the following command in the Konsole.
Always a good idea to do this when you want to change something.
Should you not like your change or should booting fail you should be able to boot with the live-cd and change back to your old menu with
Edit: Your partition setup looks weird btw. I would personally reinstall OpenSUSE and do a manual repartition of the drive. It shouldn’t harm XP. During the install do a manual setup of the partitioner. Try and delete sda5,6,7 and 8. Create a new extended partition (sda3) and it should then be able to create a new swap (sda4), root, (sda5) and home(sda7) partitions. Swerna can correct me on this if the advice is wrong.
There’s a bug in openSUSE 11.1 bootloader that is fixed in the normal course of events by an automatic update process. Let’s just make sure that’s over/done. go to Yast –> Software –> Online Updates and install anything that’s available.
Then this would be the way to go to get the best bootloader that Yast can do automatically:
Go to Yast –> System –> Boot Loader. The Grub configuration screen comes up with the Tab “Section Management” activated. In the lower right is a drop-down selector labelled “Other”. Select from “Other” the option “Propose New Configuration” and then wait for Grub to analyse your partitions and display a new configuration. This may take a while. Important: When that finishes, activate the tab labelled “Boot Loader Installation” and select to “Boot from the Master Boot Record”. [Yast will often default to booting from the root or boot partition rather than from the MBR but that’s for experts only – always choose the MBR.] Then click Finish to save the changes and install the reconfigured Grub into the hard drive’s MBR. If you get a message that "The bootloader boot sector will be written to a floppy disk … don’t bother with the floppy – just click OK to proceed and install to the MBR. Reboot and you should be able to boot to openSUSE using a new and reliable Grub with a new and reliable menu.
At that stage you may or may not have windows included in Grub’s boot menu. If you don’t have windows in the menu then report back and we can move to put windows into the boot menu. If you do have windows in the menu and you want it changed to be the default then report back and we can proceed with that step. I just don’t want you to do too many steps at once.
Finally, you asked this:
But I am afraid to proceed with this in case I destroy my windows partition.
Will these recovery procedures protect my Windows or could I loose it?
The process I’ve outlined in this post should not affect the windows installation.
Thanks for your reply Dexter1979, I am going to carry on running with Swerdna’s method for now.
Swerdna, I have updated Suse with everything including their “kitchen sink”
I have the gone through YAST and done the Propose New Configuration and rebooted from the hard drive.
I don’t have Windows in the Grub menu - I have:
OpenSUSE
OpenSUSE Failsafe
Kernel
So we now need to know how to put Windows back in the Grub menu
I do see a method of fixing this problem and it’s detailed at the very end of your notes: How To Multiboot openSUSE and Windows (2000, XP, Vista - any mix) using the GRUB bootloader.
This gives a 2 or 3 step recovery.
I see in step 2 it says:
Check under the Tab “Boot Loader Installation” that the checkmark is in “Boot from Master Boot Record” and remove any other checkmarks.
I still have a checkmark against the
Custom Boot Partition (/dev/sda2)
Should I have un-checked this too?
Will we be proceeding with step 3 of these notes?
And I am running the Gnome desktop which I failed to say before.
Yes – but in your case I think it will not matter. I’m worried about your partitioning. As Dexter1979 noted, your partition setup is weird. Something went wrong with your partitions and I think that could be why the entry for windows is not appearing in the Grub bootloader.
Will we be proceeding with step 3 of these notes?
And I am running the Gnome desktop which I failed to say before.
Yes, proceed with step 3 and use:
gnomesu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
to edit the menu. Insert this as an additional entry just afte the first openSUSE entry:
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows xp###
title Windows bootloader menu
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
Put a blank line in front and after
Save and reboot – see what happens. Don’t worry about which boots first for now.
The important line is: default 0 which means make the first entry the default boot item.
Use gedit again to change it to the count for the windows entry. Take account that the count starts from zero; i.e. “default 0” means entry number 1, “default 1” means entry number 2, “default 2” means entry number 3, and so on…
As always with Linux there is more than one way of doind things.
At this stage I would use Yast to modify the default.
Go to Yast (enter SU password when prompted) - System - Bootloader
You’ll see the choices you have to boot from in front of you. Click on the one you want to make default so it’s highlighted and click ‘Set as Default’ in the bottom right.
All done.
If you want to change the time you see the grub menu then you click, in the same screen, the ‘bootloader installation’ tab - Bootloader options and change the ‘Timeout in seconds’ to your desired time.
When you are fully done click ‘Ok’ (ones of twice depending where you are in the screen) and your changes are saved to the Grub menu. It even makes a backup for you called menu.lst.old incase you screw it up. No messy editing and things. Nice and clean GUI. Just the way I like it.
It was one of the reasons I stuck with OpenSUSE. Yast rocks
I recommended the superuser-editor approach because garthkh has a possible dodgy partition transition between sda1 and sda2. It seems that via Yast garthkh can’t get windows recognised and last time it was used to alter the priority it broke the bootloader – but the editor seems to be working when making changes.
Normally I recommend Yast BUT in this one case I would recommend not to use Yast’s bootloader module to alter anything related to sda1 or the bootloader might break again.
I’m back - sorry about the delay but had to attend to some other things.
Okay so the sequence is all done and you two have been discussing the merits of using YAST to do the job.
I was going to ask (now that I have also done the online updates to Suse) if you thought it was worth the chance now to try and move my Windows to the top line and changing the sequence again with YAST Boot Loader Settings? It might prove a good or bad patch if they have sent one through.
Does the fault discussion we’ve had go down for possible patch details?
I recommend you use a text editor to change the default boot item and to move it to the top of the list of boot items.
That’s because I have some (small but real) doubts about your partition setup. Yast seems unable to interpret your windows partition properly with the Grub bootloader module.
I outlined how to change the priority in post #11 of this thread. If you’re going to move the windows item to the top of the list in the menu display, it will be different again. I don’t want to see more problems for you, so I suggest that you post your file menu.lst here and I’ll show you how to edit it to achieve windows at the top of the display and with default boot priority.
Okay - I’ll use the text editor and wait for your reply.
My laptop has a 160Gb hard drive and was split into two 80Gb partitions. I 1st tried to install Suse onto the second (unused) partition and couldn’t figure out how to change the partition details in the install ( I seem to remember in Suse 10.1 or thereabouts it made itself pretty clear as to where it was going, unless I’m remembering when I used two physical hard drives). Anyway I used one of Hirens Boot CD partitioning tools to remove the second partition and resize the Windows partition. Maybe that is where the problem started?
Here’s the menu.lst listing:
Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat May 2 09:12:54 SAST 2009
Short answer, I wouldn’t bother now you have it working
As long as the default option works I couldn’t care less what sequence they are in. Considering you’ve had so much trouble I would count my blessings and just work with OpenSUSE for a while.