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Multi-Booting Windows XP, Windows x64 and SuSE 9.1

I recently built a computer originally intended for rendering 3D frames, but I have decided to install Linux as well. I bought a Hitatchi SATA drive to install Windows on, and I have an IDE drive for Linux ((SuSE 9.1)). I am trying to install both Windows XP Home and x64 on the SATA drive, by simply splitting the drive in half with two partitions. Okay, no problems there.

I installed SuSE on my IDE drive, and put GRUB in charge. It detected Windows XP and I added Windows x64 manually. I rebooted, and got the GRUB bootloader screen. I choose XP, and it says something to the effect of “unknown file system.” Same with x64. Both OS’s are formatted in NTFS, for the record, and I told GRUB to live in my IDE drive’s MBR.

Any suggestions on how to get all three of the OS’s to cooperate with each other?

Thank you in advance for your time. System specs are below:

Mobo: MSI K8N Neo Platinum
Proc.: AMD Athlon 64 3400+ ClawHammer
Memory: 1 GB Corsair
HD’s: 120 GB SATA Hitatchi
120 GB IDE Western Digital
Distro: SuSE 9.1

I would guess something is funky within grub - either it might be looking at the wrong drive, or the generic windows entry of

Code:

title:anything

rootnoverify

chainloader +1

needs to be modified. Can you please post the content of the /boot/grub/menu.lst file?

Peace,
JimBass

Here's the menu.lst file:

Code:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sun Jan 23 16:37:28 2005





color white/blue black/light-gray

default 0

timeout 8

gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###

title Linux

    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 vga=0x31a splash=silent desktop resume=/dev/hda1 showopts

    initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###

title Windows XP

    root (hd1,0)

    chainloader +1



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###

title Failsafe

    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0  3

    initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Windows x64###

title Windows x64

    root (hd1,1)

    chainloader +1

Hope this helps.

You see where it says -

Quote:

title Windows XP
root (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

It is looking for Windows on a hard disk. I think a sata drive will normally be /dev/sda. You might have the sata drive mapped to hd1, but I don't know how to check that. I think there is a device.map file that contains those mappings. Check that guy out, or maybe somebody else will read here and know how things should be set. I would guess that the sata would be sd0, and that should be tried in place of the hd1.

Peace,
JimBass

I read the device.map file and it said:

Code:

(hd0) /dev/hda

(hd1) /dev/hdg

Hda is my IDE drive, and hdg is my SATA. I don't know if this really matters, but my SATA drive shows up as the IDE fourth master in my BIOS, and my IDE drive shows up as the IDE primary master.

DUH!

I'm stupid for not seeing this earlier - it should not read

Quote:

root (hd1,0)

It should read

Code:

rootnoverify (hd1,0)

That should clear up your problems, as it was looking for a root that doesn't exist under MS. Rootnoverify! You should make that change both to the regular XP entry, and the 64 bit as well.

The mappings looked fine, and it must have been the result of the AFC football game that caused me to mis the obvious answer. Just edit the file and you'll be all set I suspect.

Peace,
JimBass

No such luck...

When I changed it, I rebooted the system, GRUB's menu came up and I selected Windows XP. The screen went black for a moment, then took me back to the GRUB menu.