Hello

I have an ASUS X550L laptop with OpenSuse Leap 42.1 and Windows 7 installed. GRUB 2 is the bootloader.
The drive is divided into sda1 (Windows Boot), sda2 (Windows) and sda3 (extended partition) - which contains sda5 e 6 (Linux ext4 and swap partitions respectively). There is also a sda4 which is a NTFS partition designed to share documents between OpenSuse and Windows.

When I boot my computer into Windows, instead of the usual stuff, I get a stripped green screen. Then the Windows logo appears for some instants, and then back to the stripped green screen.

How do I know it's GRUB's problem? When I use gparted to remove the -boot tag from the Linux partition and apply it to the Windows boot partition, it starts fine.

I don't even know where to start looking. GRUB loading some sort of drivers?

Whatever the cause of that, it's windows. Once you have selected windows from the Grub boot menu you are no longer using Grub but the boot process has been turned over to the windows bootloader.

Linux systems do not need a partition to be marked active or bootable as windows does so just put the boot flag on the windows partition.

Sounds more like a brain-dead BIOS. I agree with yancek, just leave the boot flag on the Win partition, and forget about it.

If I put the boot (or is it the active?) flag on the Windows partition, it goes straight into Windows, no GRUB and no OpenSuse for me.

From what I have been reading in the Internet it's either:

1. Graphics issue - GRUB must load some sort of graphics drivers to have that neat appearance - which are then not compatible with Windows. A while back I tried installing proprietary NVIDIA drivers in OpenSuse and that made Windows boot work. OpenSuse however stopped working, because those drivers were incompatible with something. Besides, it shows green stripes, compatible with GRUB's green theme.

2. Some GRUB configuration issue. Some people experienced similar problems with Ubuntu, but there is no mention of stripped screen.

EDIT: OK, I'm feeling a bit stupid right now, but I'll post this anyway. When I was searching OpenSuse's control panel for any additional information I could give you, I found out an option to disable GRUB's graphic theme. I don't know how to set it up in GRUB's config file, but I disabled it in the control panel and now it works!

Thank you guys, and sorry for the trouble!

1 members found this post helpful.

Glad you got it sorted.
The boot flag booting straight to Windoze is like I said, brain-dead BIOS. I have seen similar, but not for years.
As for the grub theme, that's probably plymouth screwing you - another piece of rubbish IMHO, but people seem to want it.