Okay.... after crying "wolf" an hour ago because I didn't observe the install screen very well... I changed the resolution, got beautiful screens, and proceeded to install Suse 9.1 on a separate hard drive in my otherwise windows 2000 system.

HDa1 NTFS boot win2K
HDa4,hda5 are FAT32 partitions
HDb5 is a big old backup drive
hdc would be the CDRom, I guess
Suse is on HDd2

I selected to have Grub installed on MBR of HDa1, it noted I would have options for Suse, Windows, rescue, and several other options.

After a painless install, it reboots, and all I get is "GRUB" at the top left corner of the screen.

I will leave out the expletives, and the exasperation, and ask if anyone can explain what the heck happened, and speculate on why it didn't work.

I rewrote the MBR to get rid of GRUB, and be able to boot Win2K so I could come here and ask for help, so not only would I benefit from an explanation of what might have happened, but now I need to know how to put GRUB back into the MBR, along with the option to boot windows as well.

Please have mercy on me, and if anyone can tell me how to install grub, take it easy on me, and assume I am stupid. I am old and after twenty years of computers, I am weary of wrestling with operating systems, all kinds of windows, OS/2, BEOS, etc, and with linux always having to fstab, mount, and fight USB to the death, which is why I am trying Suse, as many have told me it picks up all those things on the install. Fingers crossed.

Based on the simple install, I think I am on the right track to a useful distro, if I can get GRUB back and pick my OS when I boot up. Can't wait to see Suse

Thanks for the long suffering and patience everyone always shows around here :-)

John

try this command


grub>chainloader +1

You could try to activate the LBA mode for your harddisk in the BIOS. If grub fails in such an early stage, if often means that the HDD controller can't access the drive. The LBA mode should provide better compatibility.

To write grub back to the MBR, use the System Repair function on your SUSE installation CD:
http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2003/1...em-Repair.html
9.1 Personal Edition: http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/0...od_91pers.html

I never had any problems with grub untill I tried to install suse10 to my old PIII 450mhz.

Yast installed grub, but it just didn't work. It stopped in the beginning printing "loading grub" or something like that. Checked all the BIOS options, repaired and re-installed with different settings and still the damn thing didn't work.

I had to change the boot loader to LILO and everything started working.

So, I'm just saying that if you cant get it working easily, try lilo.

I see you are having a similar problem to mine

Much obliged for the great help. I visited the web pages that were recommended, and I have at least figured out how to boot the system using the install CD, and choosing the suse_update option.

This was the first time I had gotten into Suse, and I really liked what I saw, including how it picked up my drives, even NTFS, got the USB flash drive, the modem, I think my palm pilot, and even gives me a chance to configure my HP scanner, so whooohooo, I am looking foward to this.

Now for the ironic part. The past distros I have used, have installed, and booted from MBR and/or floppies without any problems, using Lilo, but fell short on "out of the box" support for peripherals.

Seems that now I have the exact opposite, as I cannot get Lilo or Grub to install into the MBR, or a floppy disk. I have chosen the floppy path so I don't keep screwing up my MBR and having to restore it :-)

YaST puts me in the configuration screen to install either LILO or Grub, and I also have tried to create a boot floppy option.

Well, none of them work. When I put Grub into the MBR, or on the floppy, it boots to a blank screen that says Grub in the upper left corner. When I try to use Lilo, it boots and give the old familiar 99 99 99 99 99 and on and on and on.....

LBA is enabled, always has been, and again Suse is on hdd2.

What on earth is going on here? When I try to make a boot floppy, it cannot proceed as it finds no image on the installation media, which I assume means that since there is nothing in the MBR, it cannot take what would be there to create the bootable floppy.

At least I can get into Suse, and try things, and I want to make the floppy work first, as I said, to save the MBR and lots of time.

Soooo, if anyone has any ideas, I am willing to try whatever it takes, give out whatever info might be needed, and I hope to succeed here, as I like what I saw.

BTW, YaST is an acronym for what?

Thanks a lot,

John

I am sorry to appear dense here, but I am unable to see how to do that, if my Suse system cannot boot because GRUB is not working? Once I get into Suse, I still do not know how to get to a GRUB prompt. I open a terminal window, and type Grub, and it just smiles at me......

I know its clear as day to so many, but its rather murky here in "just learning" land :-)

John

Thanks for the advice I have received with my GRUB/Lilo booting problem. I have deleted Suse from my machine, and one day, I will go find something that can be used, rather than spending a day and a half just trying to get the darn thing to even be able to boot. I have sometimes had problems with other distros and the MBR, but never have failed to be able to make a bootable floppy.

Everyone here deserves a medal for service over and above the call of duty. My disgust is directed towards developers who seem more intent on flashing icons, and yet another partition info utility, when there is so much work to be done on installing and becoming productive.

I am quite PC literate, and have used Linux enough to fumble around with it, but if a distro cannot even write the MBR, or make a boot floppy, its time to move on to something else. I would temper those comments with a desire to see more help and readme files on what to do when things like that go wrong. Its a big planet, lots of computers and possible configurations, but when you boot and get nothing, and there is no written help info, well, the heck with it.

As noted, the cfg file that gets written to the floppy says my install can be found on hdd2, when in fact, hdd2 is really the swap file. Re-installed, and turned those around, and still the cfg file makes them backwards. I edited it, but it didn't help. I don't understand the utility that makes rescue and boot floppies, because when I choose the menu for making a boot floppy, it says it cannot find the image file....... One would think that making the boot floppy involved creating that image file. If the utility can't find it, what chance do I have of figuring it out? :-) Lack of any help or docs on this is a bummer.

Been in and out of the linux world for seven or eight years, and Suse looks like the nicest, and most intelligent install so far, picking up all of my devices, and just impressing me very much, but hey, if it can't boot, its gotta go.

Again, thanks for your patience, and wisdom. Maybe one day, I will try yet another distro.....

John

It may be too late, but I read some reports that changing the drive order in /boot/grub/device.map helped.

I am sorry to hear that SUSE doesn't work for you. I heard about these troubles occasionally, but luckily, I never had to experienced them. (SUSE user since 6.2)

How would one do that abisko00?

It's interesting that when reading the Dual boot sticky I had the exact opposite problem in SUSE 9.3 that I am having now. In that GRUB was not a problem but Lilo was and now it's the other way around. But I am pretty sure my GRUB issues might be solved by this /boot/grub/device.map. It seems to me that Suse 10 might have issues not being on the 1st drive in the system.

Have a look at this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...85#post1925185

'Not being the first drive' should not be an issue.

YaST = Yet another System Tool

Interesting.... I don't have a /boot/grub/device.map file anywhere on my system. Is it required?

John

If you are using lilo it may not be required (never used lilo, so I don't know). But it's quite important for grub. It requires root permissions to open the file. Maybe that's why you don't see it?

Thanks.

I am doing this from root, figuring just such a thing might be needed. I don't care if its LILO, GRUB, or whatever. I just wanted to get into system and use it :-)

If its not there, I think my next question is obvious <g>

I posted in the general software forum just now, a request or an inquiry, for information on how linux boots, what it does, how its configured, and how to fix it when things like this happen. I can walk away from Suse, but in six months, if I try Slackware and have boot problems, I will be clogging up the groups asking the same basic questions all over again. If I am ever going to use Linux as my primary OS, I need to fully understand how such basic processes work, or I will end up in trouble one day.

Someone, somewhere, has this knowledge, and its likely published for all to see. If for instance, Suse installation messed up and left out files, or they are in the wrong place, there is NO way to find that problem without being able to step through the boot floppy and find out what exactly it is doing, and what it is looking for. Given that kind of detail, anyone should be able to make any Linux distro bootable from a floppy, without YaST, or any other utility. After all, whomever wrote the YaST utility knows how it all works. I would like to know where that information is stored, so I can do what YaST does, and manually create the floppy, or at the least, be able to look at the floppy, and see why it is not booting the OS.

"I have a dream" :-)

Thanks a lot,

John