I currently have Win98 and SuSE 8.1 running happily together on a PC. Win98 is on disk1 and SuSE 8.1 is on disk2. I am using the Grub set up by the 8.1 installer.

Disk1 has 10GB of empty space and I'd like to install SuSE 9.1 in there (from DVD). The install looks like it will go OK, but all the options involve removing, updating or ignoring the 8.1 installation. If I ignore the 8.1, I guess it will still be there, but how will I boot it? 9.1 looks like it is going to install its own GRUB ... will it be as simple as just re-configuring the new GRUB to see 8.1 on disk 2, or will it maybe even see the 8.1 and include it on the boot menu automatically?

Any comments welcome.

Thanks

It would be nice if the 9.1 install could detect and include your 8.1 grub settings, but as a precaution you should copy them down in the event that 9.1 totally ignores the 8.1 installation and doesn't create a boot option.
I assume that the 10GB of empty space means that it is un-partitioned. If not, you will have to resize the Win98 partition.

That is really the only question that I see in your post. Good luck, post if you have more questions.

Thanks for that. Yes it is un-partitioned space. It sounds like you are reasonably confident that it will be possible to re-configure the new Grub to boot the 8.1 as an option (providing I record what is there now). I hoped that was the case.

... in fact I guess it is even more likely that I'll simply be able to mount all the partitions on disk2 anyway, which is probably all I really need to retain my data and starting point for rebuilding my config?

I think the feature to recognise other Linux OS has been added in the newest version of SUSE. But I think you can safely ignore the 8.1 disk and later add it manually to /boot/grub/menu.lst. Make a backup copy of you current menu.lst, so you'll know which parameters to set.

Another hint: use the same swap-space for both SUSE's, so you don't waste extra space.