Hi:

I've been running Black Lab Linux 702 x86_64 for a few days and would like to install it alongside PC LinuxOS but there are a few things that have to be fixed.

After installing PC LinuxOS I discovered that the Ext3 partition isn't bootable the flag is not there. I'm thinking that can be fixed in g-parted.
The other problem is Grub didn't install and I don't have the bootable usb that PC LinuxOS was on anymore.

Could I just install Black Lab Linux and run update-grub and it will add PC LinuxOS to the Grub Menu?

I am not sure why you say Grub did not install in PCLinuxOS - but you can install Black Lab and the PCLinuxOS will automatically be detected during installation, and will be added to Black Lab's Grub menu. You will not have to run "update-grub".
You do not need to worry about any boot flag, under normal circumstances. Just install Black Lab's bootloader to the MBR and you are done.
As I said, Black Lab's Grub will automatically detect PCLinuxOS - but the reverse is not true. PCLinuxOS's Grub will not automatically detect a Black Lab installation, if you install PCLinuxOS after Black Lab, or when you run "update-grub" in PCLinuxOS. That is because PCLinuxOS is still using Grub Legacy which is not capable of automatically detecting a Grub2 (Black Lab) installation.

By the way, the easiest way to fix a Grub which is not working, (or has not been installed) is to have a Rescatux CD in your toolbox. The Rescatux CD includes SuperGrub2, gparted, fsarchiver, and more.
To fix a missing or broken Grub, boot the computer with the Rescatux CD. When Rescatux starts you will get a menu to start Rescatux or SuperGrub2. The SuperGrub2 option is the one you want. After chosing SuperGrub2, the next menu will give the options of booting any installed operating system on your computer ("Detect any Operating System") or any loop mountable iso files ("Detect loop bootable ISO's"). When you chose the "Detect any Operating System" menu item, the program will search your drives for your installed operating systems and create a menu for you that will allow you to boot any one of them. It will be a slow process to search your drives and create that menu, so be patient and let it complete.
Then after you boot into your target OS, run the following commands in a terminal:
- where X is the drive you want to install Grub to. ( sda? sdb?)

Tutorial and Troubleshooting with SuperGRUB2:
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/SuperGRUB2Disk
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/wiki/Boot_Problems

IMHO, this is preferable to the "chroot" method of repairing Grub, because it is easier to understand and less intrusive, with fewer possiblities for errors.

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I would have to disagree with that. I installed PCLinuxOS Mate version yesterday on a computer which already had Ubuntu 14.04 installed. I installed Grub from PCLinux to the MBR and an entry was created for Ubuntu 14.04 which booted as did PCLinuxOS. Running "sudo update-grub" from PCLinux won't do anything as that is just a "stub" to the grub-mkconfig command and as far as I know only works on the different Ubuntu distributions. Running it on PCLinux will give you a command not found.

The menu entry on PCLinux which chainloads Ubuntu is below. That's a 32bit system so you would need to change it to wherever the core.img file is on Black Lab as well as changing the root partition line.

You could put a chainloader entry in the PCLinux menu.lst file and install Black Lab but it would probably be simpler to install the Black Box Grub to the MBR which would detect PCLinux.

I've never heard of Rescatux. I'll look for it online.

In that case I'll just install Black Lab. When I fire up my desktop I'm just not sure which distribution will be at the top of the Grub Menu. I'm guessing the first entry in the Grub Menu will be Black Lab.

I'll be making a chain load entry in LILO because Slackware is on a separate drive.
Slack is on my 500 GB WD HDD and PC LinuxOS and the fresh install of Black Lab will be on my 1 TB GB Seagate HDD.

I plan on unplugging the Sata cable to the 500 GB WD HDD because I want Slack to have it's own bootloader.

That would be up to you. If you are using MBR rather than UEFI to boot, you will have the choice of installing Grub to the partition on which you install Black Lab or to the MBR. If you seelct the MBR (which I am sure will be the default), then it will be the first on the Grub menu.
Since you indicate in your initial post that Grub did not install to the MBR, that would mean your drive is unbootable unless you put an entry in the Slackware Lilo bootloader for it so it would be the logical thing to do to install the Black Lab Grub2 to the MBR of the drive, since you want to keep the drives separate.

Thanks for confirming that Black Lab will be the first entry in my Grub Menu; provided I choose MBR.

Your right. At the moment that 1 TB HDD is 'unbootable'.

I'll edit the lilo.conf file before I install Black Lab.
Here's my plan-

I've already made PC LinuxOS EXT 3 /dev/sdb1 and made the swap for PC Linux /dev/sdb2.
So I'll create EXT 4 for Black Lab /dev/sdb3 and make the swap for Black Lab as /dev/sdb4.

The limit is 4 partitions for one HDD right?

There is no need to have 2 swap partitions. You can only boot one OS at a time, and they can use the same swap partition when they run.

With MBR/msdos partitioning there is a limit of 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions plus 1 extended partition which can contain multiple logical partitions. So, no, you are not actually limited to 4 partitions for one hard drive.

I confirmed that PCLinuxOS will not automatically detect a different OS which uses Grub2 by installing PCLinuxOS today as a test. It did not automatically detect a single one of my other installed OS's - Mint 17, Mint 17.3 Mate, Netrunner, Peppermint 5, and Korora 23.

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Thanks TxLonghorn-

When I install Black Lab tomorrow I won't create a swap as I have already given PC Linux a swap partition.

How's Korora 23? Does it run well and is stable?

Korora 23 with the Cinnamon Desktop is freakin awesome. Korora 20 with Cinnamon was a bit gimpy, but 23 is rock solid and an excellent distro that is more user friendly than Fedora.

Interesting. Not sure what the difference is as I had Ubuntu with Grub2 already installed when I installed PCLinuxOS on an old Acer notebook and it's Grub Legacy created an entry for Ubuntu which booted.

Black Lab Linux is installed and running well.-
WiFi worked right out of the box and Iceweasel is working as expected.

I haven't booted into PC Linux but I will this evening.

Thank you both for your help.-

http://i1052.photobucket.com/albums/...1_11-50-59.png

Thanks for the details a friend of mine has shown an interest and may want me to install it.