I am considering reducing my triple boot machine down to a single. I have three separate drives each with it’s own OS. Two of which I never use or plan to use any longer.
For simplicity I am labeling them as-
1:Win7
2:Linux12.3
3:Linux13.1
One and Two are the drives I wish to loose. My trouble would be reuniting grub on drive 1 with Linux13.1 on 3.
Are there any simple solutions to this move.
I can think of one which worked for when I was using 12.x
Assuming you’re using grub2, there’s a package called kcm-grub2 editor. You can pretty much edit all the grub2 configuration using this tool. You can get rid of the desired partitions on disk 1 & 2 after making all necessary backups. Gparted or Yast partitioner may be used to edit partitions. After finalising the necessary changes to the partitions on respective disks, launch grub2 editor, make sure you tick “probe for operating systems” and in the advanced tab, install/recover bootloader you may install grub2 on desired disk/partition.
But in general, I don’t think it’s a good idea to install grub on a different disk. Hope this helps 
No partitians here, each have own drive. I do plan on rearranging the sata cables accordingly.
Would not my installation disk reinstall/repair grub2.
Launch the Yast partitioner, right click root drive, choose edit, make certain Do not format partition is selected in left column, and in right column, click on the Fstab Options button.
In there, choose Mount in /etc/fstab by as Volume Label.
Then, create a label in the blank provided.
Do the same for any other mounted partition.
Then, go into Yast bootloader, set your boot to root (/) only (on the drive you are keeping), not in MBR.
Sometimes this does not always seem to rewrite Grub the first time around.
To make certain it does, do:
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
grub2-install /dev/sdX
(X, of course, you would replace with the matching letter for your device)
Use a partitioner, such as GParted, or if you know how, Parted from the command line, and make certain the boot flag is set to the root partition.
Take out the other drives and test boot.
… oh, those two commands:
Issue them from the Terminal - Super User mode.
Report back here after your test boot, and any problems we will help further.
On 2014-10-27, mike7757 <mike7757@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> I am considering reducing my triple boot machine down to a single. I
> have three separate drives each with it’s own OS. Two of which I never
> use or plan to use any longer.
> For simplicity I am labeling them as-
>
> 1:Win7
> 2:Linux12.3
> 3:Linux13.1
>
> One and Two are the drives I wish to loose. My trouble would be
> reuniting grub on drive 1 with Linux13.1 on 3.
>
> Are there any simple solutions to this move.
I suspect Fraser has posted the right methodology about how to go about manipulating the bootloader, but there are a few
questions I’d need to ask first to be sure what you want to do:
grub', do you mean GRUB Legacy’ or `GRUB2’?If you intend to keep all three hard drives, I personally think it’s not a good idea to go from a triple boot to a
single boot. At the very least, I’d suggest that for emergency/data retrieval purposes it’s a good idea at least to have
a dual boot. If want to remove Win7, that’s perfectly understandable but I suspect the ideal Windows-free configuration
for your box (depending on how you intend to use it) would be openSUSE 13.1 and openSUSE 13.2.
I do recall using the word simple. In all honesty I don’t think it went there. I’m kinda certain I would break something. Everything there is much above my head. But that is just me. As far as computer knowledge, I put everyone above me.
The simplest method for me is just wait till the next openSuse upgrade. Then allow it to install itself to my win7 drive, thus overwriting its contents.
I want to thank everyone for their time
On 2014-10-28, mike7757 <mike7757@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> I do recall using the word simple. In all honesty I don’t think it went
> there.
Going from a triple boot to a dual boot is definitely a simplication!
> I’m kinda certain I would break something. Everything there is
> much above my head. But that is just me. As far as computer knowledge, I
> put everyone above me.
GNU/Linux isn’t free, you just pay with time rather than money. But there are plenty here happy to help you. In
principle, what you trying to achieve can be done without a single line invoke from console.
> The simplest method for me is just wait till the next openSuse upgrade.
> Then allow it to install itself to my win7 drive, thus overwriting its
> contents.
I agree. If you install 13.2 over Win7, you’ll still have a triple boot though. You could free up some hard drive space,
by replacing your oldest (12.2 IIRC) with a data partition, but this can be easily be done from the other installations.
> I want to thank everyone for their time
Pleasure. Good luck. But come back if you need some help