total beginner - vista opensuse problems

English Install/Boot/Login
1

this is the first time i m using an OS apart from Windows, and i think i have messed it up. i have 2 main problems-

  1. opensuse opens only in failsafe mode and doesnt open normally. after a bit of a research on the net, i think it’s because of my graphics card- which is an ATI Radeon HD3400 series. however, i am not able to solve it.
  2. I have a problem in dual-booting. I read the thread on Dual booting and changed the value of windows in menu.lst to what is required. but now it takes me to vista bootloader, where when i select microsoft windows vista, it takes me to the opensuse installer.
    i had installed opensuse through vista. i installed the installer in vista first, rebooted and then went through the installation. can u please help me because now i am fearing that i wont be able to access the data on my windows partition:(
2

So it mean that you are now in SUSE…
if yes try this:
open YaST->system->boot loader->section management.
check there either you have both OS boot settings.
Or can add new by using the Add button there.

3

bootloader I can’t help you much more then what is in this thread: Fixing vista multiboot with openSUSE - openSUSE Forums but I am sure others can

as for the booting suse, when you at the grub bootloader select the normal opensuse but enter the nr 3 at the bottom in the box there, there already might be some other stuff in there, just add. It will then boot till init 3 (right before the graphics stuff start), you should be at the prompt, log in as root and run sax2 -r, that should start up sax and you should be able to setup your graphics card in a pretty basic way. Exit sax2 saving your settings and either reboot or do init 5 && exit to continue booting into the desktop.

Hope that gets you a bit further

4

ATI - Yuck:(

Least of your worries. You ran the installer from within windows didn’t you. Yikes!:open_mouth:

Read this carefully:
Update from Suse 11.0 to 11.1 - Page 2 - openSUSE Forums

5

thanx a lot for the link for bootloader. i will try it. what can i do mate, i was ignorant. will keep it in mind in the future.

Dell Studio only offers ATI so I had no choice. Is there anything I can do about it now?

6

just to clarify, the GRUB menu has windows, but it simply takes me to the vista bootloader which as i said, when selecting microsoft windows vista takes me to opensuse installer.

7

just tackle 1 problem at a time, start with the one most urgent to you, probably not being able to load vista, with the bootloader link you should get that sorted.

then when that is done boot to init 3 and solve your gfx issue

8

will do that. i just wanted to confirm that it is not an unresolvable issue.