Messed up GRUB

michalng · 12-13-2009, 05:39 PM

My computer boots up with openSUSE's menu and I normally chainload it into Debian.

Sample of openSUSE's menu.lst

Quote:

###openSUSE's /boot/grub/menu.lst chainloading into Debian, call this Debian_1_Menu
title Debian
root (hd0,5)
chainloader +1

However, today I got this "error" message when selecting the above

Quote:

root (hd0,5)
Filesystem type is extfs, partition type 0x83
chainloader +1

GRUB

I suspect I may have accidentally done something stupid with grub

Edited openSUSE's menu.lst and add this

Quote:

###added into openSUSE's /boot/grub/menu.lst, call this Debian_2_Menu
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.30-2-amd64
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30-2-amd64 root=/dev/sda6 ro quiet
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-2-amd64

booted into Debian successfully and installed grub-legacy.

Rebooted and tried to boot into Debian using Debian_1_Menu and got the same error message.

Any idea what went wrong?

~sHyLoCk~ · 12-13-2009, 07:25 PM

Install the debian grub in /dev/hda6 and SUSE grub to MBR, then chainload.

michalng · 12-14-2009, 03:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ~sHyLoCk~

Install the debian grub in /dev/hda6 and SUSE grub to MBR, then chainload.

Install SUSE grub to MBR -> that's already done.

Install debian grub to /dev/hda6 -> that's what I thought I've done when I installed grub-legacy.

Seems to be some more commands that I need to issue but haven't done?

andmalc · 12-16-2009, 03:06 PM

Chainloading is usually only needed to boot unsupported operating systems:

http://www.linuxselfhelp.com/gnu/gru...er/grub_4.html

Since you're booting Debian, you can replace the chainloading line in your SuSE menu.lst with the two usual lines for kernel and initrd.

milomak · 12-16-2009, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Install debian grub to /dev/hda6 -> that's what I thought I've done when I installed grub-legacy.

I think the install CD has an option to repair grub. If it does use that and reinstall Debian grub to the root partition (or the boot partition if it is seperate).

Quote:

Chainloading is usually only needed to boot unsupported operating systems:

If you run multiple systems, I would actually recommend chainloading. If you do not chainload you could easily change the kernels to a distro, forget to edit the grub on the distro that has the mbr and be stuck. so if you chainload, you never have to worry about the impact kernel changes will have on your grub choices.