Dual HDD Suse 9.1 Per. Install
 

I want to install Suse 9.1 Personal on a seperate HDD in a win XP Home machine. I tried installing it with both drives hooked up, but the installation went no where near as smooth as other Suse installations-just aborted before I messed something up. How do I get Suse to just install on the seperate HDD? Would it be easiest to just unplug the current one and do a clean install on the new one (empty right now)? If so, what do I need to consider when I plug both in together? Right now Windows shows both HDDs, but will that change after I install Suse on the 2nd drive-should I just configure the machine to boot to the windows drive and it will show the Suse drive? I want a machine with both OS's on it so I don't have yet another computer taking up space. I've never had a dual HDD/dual boot machine before, so any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA

Normally I would expect the SuSE installation to start from the DVD or CD, and run as usual until you reach the point when you are asked about the partition where to install the system to. The partitioning tool should show you your two HDDs as two separate partitions (more if you have more partitions on the disks).

Make sure you are able to tell which partition houses your Windows - it is probably the one called hda1. If the second HDD is the only other partition, it is probably listed as hdb1. If you're sure that there are no files you might still need in that second partition, no swap file or anything, you can delete the partition and use the space for your Linux installation. You cannot use the partition as it is because it's most probably an NTFS partition, or else a Fat 32 partition which isn't much better. Linux needs reiserfs or ext2 / ext3 partitions, and a swap partition. SuSE can make a more or less sensible suggestion about how to partition the remaining space. As long as you don't touch the NTFS partition housing your Windows, nothing will happen to it.

The next problem is the boot manager: when I installed SuSE alongside Windows 2000, the installation of the boot manager killed the original MBR, so booting was no longer possible. I could repair the MBR from the Windows 2000 CD, but it would then only boot Windows (of course). This seems to be a pretty common problem, and my solution to it was that I didn't write the boot loader into the MBR of the master disk, but onto a floppy disk which I have since been using for booting into Linux (it also has an option to boot into Windows). To do that, you have to give /dev/fd0 as the target for the boot loader installation in the appropriate dialogue once it turns up. Of course you also need an empty floppy disk in your drive.

Whenever you know you want to boot Windows, you can simply take the floppy out of the drive and your Windows will boot, totally oblivious to your Linux.

Windows won't see the Linux partition unless you buy tools which can read Linux filesystems in Windows. It will show you the second hard disk as unformatted or unrecognizable, and you should stay well away from it when working with Windows. Linux can mount your Windows partition, at least for reading.

If you want to exchange files between the systems, you could have an additional partition on the second disk which you format with Fat32. Both systems can read and write on this format. The partition does not store additional Linux information such as owner and user data for files, and no ADS (alternative data streams) from Windows, which is actually a plus, considering that viruses and spyware can hide in there. So you should only use such a partition for files you absolutely need to cross over into the other OS.

Robin

alright, got suse installed and online and all, it "sees" the windows drive but when I try to boot windows it's the same "error 21: drive does not exist". I edited the grub file from:
title windows
root (hd1,0)
chainloder +1

to:
title windows
root (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloder +1
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)

and "root" to "rootnoverify"

and several combinations of those changes, according to info I've found elsewhere as solutions. Still no go. I've tried the windows drive as sl..., ehem, secondary as well as cable select, no go. The windows drive boots fine on it's own, when changed to master.
A couple of questions:
In device manager it shows the windows drive as available, but not configured-do I need to configure it?...
Properties are: owner-can view; group-forbidden; others-forbidden...do I need to change these values-I don't want to mess up the windows drive.
Thanks.

This may be due to a bug in parted, I just had to struggle with a similar error when installing SuSE 9.1 alongside a Windows XP installation, though on a different partition on the same disk. Change grub back to the standard, but set the correct mode to address your harddisks in the BIOS. It is probably set to Auto, and you need to set it to LBA or Large or whatever is correct. Probably grub will then be able to boot Windows, too.

It has to be chainloader, though.With an 'a'.

Robin

Hey, I got it working, it was a bios problem. Let the fun begin! Thanks B.P., you're an angel. By the way, grub is now set to:
title windows
root (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1 (typo in last post...)
and win boots fine-are those settings alright, or should I change 'em back, since it was a bios booboo...
Nick

Never change a running system ;)

Robin