oprogue

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Have you attempted to re-install windows to see if you can atleast get it to boot?

I'm wondering about the hardware configuration ... are your hds striped or setup other than a single ide drive configuration? ... are these machines running a special hd partition? Have you attempted to boot from a live cd yet?

Linus VanPelt

Hey folks

This may warrant a different thread, but I'm dual-booting Win2K and SuSE 9.1 right now and considering upgrading to WinXP (mainly for work reasons). I know that in Windows it's usually more advisable to do a clean install rather than an upgrade, and my assumption is the upgrade will overwrite the MBR.

In this instance, would it simply be a necessity of creating a boot floppy for my SuSE system, booting into it once I've installed WinXP, and rewriting the GRUB boot file to the MBR?

Mad Malc

Hi Linus Vanpelt
You are quite right in your assumption that an XP upgrade will over write the MBR, hopefully the boot floppy will do the trick, if not you can always boot from the Suse install disc and choose repair, that definitly works from personal experience.

Mad Malc

oprogue

Currently running an XP/SuSe 9.2 Pro x86-64 dual boot. Contemplating composing my experience for others. For the most part the install was smooth. The only thing I'd change would be in doing the install from a dvd rather than ftp.

The only real issue I has was some where along the lines I read you aren't suppose to install the bootloader in the primary partition; this was the only hick-up I ran into. 9.2 Pro prompted me for a floppy to install the bootloader (my laptop doesn't have a floppy!) - I tried (invain) to redirect the boot loader to a specific 800mb partition I set up for it without initial success. Finally booting into ftp mini-installation cd I managed to have it save the bootloader where I wanted it.

Other than that I don't think you'll have any issues ... even if you made your machine a triple boot.

Mad Malc

Re The Parted Problem
I have hit the same problem with Fedora Core 3,Mandrake10.1, Debian Sarge, Suse 9.1, guess I'm just lucky....
My solution is to use windows XP partition manager to delete the 'duplicated partitions' , at least that's how XP reportsa them, partition magic just says 'Bad Disc', then to re partition using a windows partition manager ( there are some reasonable working freebies try Acronis partition manager) to give a swap partition and another for the rest usually formatted EXT3.
Then all the above linux Distros install perfectly, as far as XP is concerned.
That's not to say they weren't perfectly installed before, but it soothes my need for tidyness.

Mad Malc

Recently stopped multi-booting most flavours of Windows and now just down to XP and Linux,
trying to wean other family members of XP.

stormbay

I am another one that has the same problem booting to xp with suse 9.2 and the update driver from suse doesn't work and I still get locked up even when changing my ide to large or LBA so what is next if anything. Suse at novell have no answeres or they are not telling anyone. Their only advise is to buy their llatest distro but who would if the one your trying doesn't work properly and locks ypur computer. me error message says root (hd0,0) filesystem type is fat, partition type 0cx chainloader +1 Totally stumps me. any suggestions for a bloke at the bottom of the world and mabey at the bottom of the linux heap at the moment. Dont want to reformat, would like to fix it any way possible.

aus9

Hullo tiger,

you have an attempt by grub to chainload to a MS bootloader.

firstly a tutorial for grub
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=237511

but if grub is in your mbr and you don't know what to do .....the troubleshooter may be of interest
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...postid=1413211

so to get to XP

press C for commands as per trouble shooter then type these commands
root (hd0,0) .........to set up C drive
makeactive
chainloader +1

should boot you into XP

I am assuming grub is in your mbr of course so report any errors if I fail to help

stormbay

Thanks Aus, I shall try that and let you know how I go, I just hope I can understand it, it is a sharp learning curve for me, but a great challenge

stormbay

Aus9 well I spent the whole day reading the tutorial and trouble shooter still haven't gpt a clue and couldn't find how to access grub or find the mrb. This may sound stupid but is there some way you can learn this stuff that is understandable to a 60 year old actually got the whole dam thing to lock up and couldn't get past verifying dmi pool so reinstalled, Sorry i am so stupid with this I may have to give up as I can't even find a driver for my v92 modem nor get any sound from it

aus9

stormy

glad to hear you have replied even if I have failed you.
me thinks there may be an issue with suse......sorry.
can I interest you in staying with linux? would you consider trying Mandrake?

I use a dial up modem called swannsmart and KDE uses kppp to configure it , I did not need any special driver but mine was an external modem and you may have a windows-only modem.
Most internal modems are cheap and windows-only. You can use google to search your brand and the word linux or look at this forums HCL site

but back to your issue.

sorry to dumb it down but

when you start your computer, the bios starts........a kind of mini computer that checks devices but is not an operating system.......after it completes its checks......the boot order (which you can change) then attempts to find a system that can boot up
either......a bootable cdrom such as knoppix cd
a bootable floppy such as a boot disk
a bootable device such as an usb thumb drive that has a bootable system on it or

a hard drive that has a bootable partition.
It finds that bootable partitiion by looking at the very first part of that drive called the Master Boot Record.....(MBR)
in that MBR is also the very basic file called a bootloader such as your windows bootloader (XP = NTLDR.EXE) or a linux bootloader such as grub or lilo.

anyhow see if any of this makes sense.

You may find it easier to just use Knoppix cd to boot to and play with and have fun with?
see if kppp can find your modem (turn it on if its external)

good luck with all your decisions.

if I am of little help there are heaps of info and people who can.

there is a TASMANIAN linux users group here
http://www.linux.org.au/usergroups/?loc=tas

abisko00

@stormbay:
If I understood correctly, you cannot boot into XP, but SuSE is booting properly?

If this is the case, please provide us the following information:

the content of /boot/grub/menu.lst and the output of the command 'fdisk -l' ('l' like in 'like' and you need to be root to run this).

BTW: greetings from the very north to the very south

stormbay

Aus9
thanks for dumbing it down, I understand it better, I will continue and will check out mandrake. I have found grub and the mbr and will continue to read it all as I go, may be it will make more sense with time.
abisko00
thanks , I am not sure if this is the right info, as you can see I am a bit dumb with all this stuff but I got into grub and found this, I hope you all bear with me as I continue to crawl through it as I will get great pleasure when I beat the bloody thing.

Boot loader location 1.sci,74,52gb/dev/sda,st80013as(mbr)
disk order /dev/sda
default suse linux 9.2
availible sections suse linux 9.2(default) windows,failsafe--sus 9.2
active boot loader partition no
replace code in mbr leave untouched
backup affected disk areas no
save method save only changed files
color white/blueblack/light-gray
timeout 8s
gfx menu (hdd2)bootmessage
If I have the wrong info, please tell emhow to get the right stuff
Again thanks, lovely and warm down here at the bottom bit

aus9

abisko00

that does not look like a menu output, is that how messy suse is? heh heh

stormy my output looks like this

/boot/grub/menu.lst
#########################
timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
default 0


title linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda3 ro noraid devfs=nomount acpi=ht
initrd /initrd.img

title bzImage
root (hd0,1)
kernel /bzImage root=/dev/sda3 ro noraid devfs=nomount acpi=ht

title W98
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

############end of file

2) for those experts out there....my dumb down ignored the fact that you can not have a bootloader in the mbr. It starts with a pointer file and then jumps to the real boot files
for xp ......ntldr.exe
for linux ......./boot/grub unless you have isolinux or lilo

stormbay

lost me, my confusion gets worse, maybe the mbr is in the bootloader, but at leat it is refreshing to see the different opinions. I think I may download mandrake over night (dialup) being in the backblocks of the world and see how that differs, maybe I may totally crash, when loading as I can't find out how to uninstal suse, but it is a learning experience, so hopefully you will alll stay with me and it will come out just fine. Luckily I can print out my xp files on suse and it won't matter if the crash trashes my system, I hope not anyway I am due for a plus sign if you get my drift, yep suse is begining to look like a bad clone of windows, lots of nothing, my aplogies to those that make it work.
Thanks again

abisko00

aus9: Grrr, Mandrake 10 didn't even boot from the installation CD on my system
stormbay: he's right, it does not look like what I asked you for.

Try the following after you booted into SuSE's KDE: open konsole (it's a monitor-like symbol with a shell on top, right next to your 'home' symbol). type the following commands:
The output of the first command should look like in aus9's post.