Latest try:

grub> root (hd0,7)/boot/grub/kernelxxxxxxxxxx
grub> initrd(hd0,7)/boot/grub/initrdxxxxxxxxxx
grub> boot

does not get "Error 1x: ..." or "grub>" -- a batch of booting messages come up, then it all stops (after a line about "APM: BIOS 1.2 nnnnnnnnnn"; this is not necessarily a problem with BIOS; rather, as friend Larry points out, it simply means whatever is happening stopped after that particular message).

This is with xxxxxxxxxx above anything from nothing to e.g. "2.4.21-99-default", all files thus named verified with Knoppix CD as being in the above location. (Wow, five Linuces on one machine, with likely more to come).

So SuSE has not say vanished and does start giving a response to "boot". The only significant difference I can think of between the previous SuSE installation, which before worked, and the current installation, is that I did not custom partition such that /boot and /root were separate. There must be something else though.

Have not yet tried installing bootloader during SuSE/YaST repair.

I notice that trying the above approach evidently did not work entirely when installaing Mandrake (which still works): I have two lines like the above in the grub.conf file, but commented out; I went back to chainloading.

Possibly it's something about installing a loader in the BR of the SuSE partition, rather than say a mod to the "master" grub.conf.

I do not think putting the lines I give at the top of this post in grub.conf should make any difference (they should behave the same as when given to grub interactive). However, stranger things have happened.

DGL/tuxisnottux/GNU Is Not UNIX/bombadil42/merlin_ch/ch_merlin/etc.

To the grub entry for SuSE I added "root (hd0,x)". Suddenly booted (after an attempted self re-install). Back from the dead after possibly a year. In time to succumb to 9.3 Pro.

Oddly enough, the Mandrake grub entries did not have the "root (hdy, x)" line and booted fine. I was in fact trying to imitate Mandrake for SusSE and so at first gave SuSE no "root (...)" .

Now it's a matter of grub, fstab, etc. for Mandrake 10.1 and its " /bin/gettext: access disallowed" or whatever it was. Google > groups > computers takes you right to those exact messages but haven't gotten the stated solutions to work ... yet.

I realize this is late in coming but maybe it will help someone in the future.

There are a couple ways of booting a partition using one of the linux bootloaders.

1. Tell the bootloader exactly where the kernel is. An example of this from your grub menu.lst in post #1:
   title Lx: Red Hat 9 (2.4.20-6)
   root (hd1,1)
   kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-6 ro root=LABEL=/1 hdc=ide-scsi
   initrd /initrd-2.4.20-6.img
   
2. Tell the bootloader to boot the partition. Using this method we can boot other OS's also (Windows DOS etc...) The bootloader simply loads the bootsector (the first 512 bytes) of the partition and executes the bootstrap code located in the bootsector. An example of this is in your grub file from post #1:
   title Lx: SuSE 9.0
   rootnoverify (hd0,5)
   chainloader +1

In order for example #2 to work the partition needs to have a bootsector with bootstrap code. If you were installing SUSE without installing the bootloader then you had no bootsector on hda5 or hda7 or wherever SUSE was installed. In order to use method #2 you have to put the bootsector on the partition by either running lilo or grub-install.

Also the next time you need to repair a linux partition and you can't login to root account get R.I.P. (Rescue Is Possible). Handy little bootable CD with many neat tools.