I have both Win98SE and SuSE 9.0 Pro installed on my PC. Win98SE is on the boot drive(master) and SuSE 9.0 is installed on the slave drive of the motherboard primary IDE controller. I was using the default GRUB bootloader that came with SuSE to select between Win98SE and Linux. Everything was going OK until I started to get S.M.A.R.T. error readings on my boot drive. I replaced the boot drive with a new one, which messed up GRUB. I was never able to create a boot floppy with SuSE 9.0 Pro YAST. I tried, but the procedure failed, saying something about floppy drive access rights. I had supplied my root password at YAST startup. I tried to use the SuSE installation DVD to boot into the installed system to perform the grub-install /dev/hda procedure. When I did I got boot up error messages saying that the system couldn't find the /lib/modules/2-4.21-99-default/modules.dep file. I was able to get to a text root prompt to check the file system. When I get to the /lib/modules subdirectory, I have a 2.4.21-166-athlon directory, but no 2-4.21-99-default directory. I am using the nVidia video driver in order to support the 3D functions on my video card. Is the system trying to boot into a failsafe mode? The 2.4.21-166-athlon directory has files in it.

I am still a bit of a newbie when it comes to Linux. I've been trying to use the command line some, but most of my file system work has been done using the KDE file manager GUI. Is my current system fixable, or will I have to reinstall it? Is there anything that I can do prevent the GRUB restore problem if I should need to replace a boot drive in the future? Any information will be appreciated.

try changing the line that specifies the kernel in /boot/grub/menu.lst to 2.4.21-166

Thanks for the reply. I would have gotten back sooner, but I've been feeling a little under the weather. I think that the problem is not with GRUB, but with the boot to installed system process. I have since found out that when the system is booted via the DVD/CD that the kernel on the DVD/CD is used, not the one that is on the installed system. My system uses an athlon kernel, so the boot screen displays failure messages, because it can't find the system files associated with the athlon kernel. It also causes GDM and X-Window to fail.

Does it matter to the grub install procedure what kernel is loaded? Is a functional root command line the only thing needed to perform a successful grub MBR restoration?

Try booting into rescue mode using the Suse DVD, mount your root drive (the rescue mode probably does it automatically), chroot into it, then grub-install /dev/hda (or whereever your mbr is)
Or type grub and get into the grub prompt, then
Set it to where your / partition is (or /boot if you have it separate), the first digit is the driver and the second is the partition number, starting from 0. Then lastly
should install it right back into the mbr

Thanks for the reply. I can get to a text mode root command line using the boot to installed system option in YAST. I can cd into the various directories on the system and can execute programs. Will using the DVD/CD kernel version, rather than the installed system's athlon kernel version, cause any problems with the grub intall procedure? I want to be sure that there are no version, or module, dependency gotchas in using the DVD/CD kernel.

It shouldn't cause any problems, you can even install GRUB without booting into Linux if you have a GRUB bootdisk.

I did the grub-install /dev/hda procedure from the root prompt. It worked. I'm able to boot into both Linux and Windows 98SE. Both GDM and X-Window are functioning OK. Thanks for the information.