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I am will and I am trying to dual boot suse linux 9.1 personal with windows xp pro. This is on a 40gig ide hard drive. It is partitoned as the following:

30gigs NTFS XP PRO SP2
9.5gigs REISER SUSE 9.1 PERSONAL
500mb LINUX SWAP

I have windows xp running and Suse is installed altough I can't access it to finish the install, ie language options. I installed grub onto the beginning of the linux partition and NTLDR is installed onto the MBR as i have heard that windows won't work if NTLDR is not on the MBR.

Do you know how to config ntldr so that linux will boot through the boot.ini file. This is boot.ini at the moment:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /SOS

By the way this is the personal Suse 9.1 downloaded from the website and burned onto cd.
I got it working on it's own before on one partition on it's own without windows.
Then I couldn't install windows so i used the dos rescue on the win install cd and typed fixmbr to put NTLDR onto it instead of GRUB and windows would then install on the 30 gig partition. Then I installed Suse Linux 9.1 but I can't get into it so I haven't run my 1st boot yet.

This can be done, BTW you can install grub on the MBR, it actually works better that way, What partitions do you have on your disk?

Would you rather boot from the NT boot loader or grub?

I have tried with grub before but my windows partition would not work (NTFS.) It gives the error message:

ROOT (HD1,1)
FILESYSTEM TYPE UNKNOWN, PARTITION TYPE 0x7
CHAINLOADER +1

That is why last week I reinstalled windows but had problems indoing so, so I had to install NTLDR and the setup worked fine. I now have win XP Pro SP2 on a NTFS Partition of about 30gigs in size (which is working perfectly) and Suse 9.1 on a 9.5gig REISER partition. the spare 500mb is the linux swap file. However, SUSE has not got to it's first boot yet to finish the install.

I need to keep my windows installation for gaming and at the moment for internet as I only have a soft modem, otherwise I would happily have just linux, seeing as I use firefox and open office in both anyway.

I have also read on a website (can't remember which one) that you should not install grub on the MBR if you are trying to dual boot Suse Linux 9.1 and XP because windows only accepts NTLDR.

Thank you for your reply

O.K., try the following at the grub prompt to boot Windows :-

grub> rootnoverify (hd0,0)


(Sets the partition to boot and tells grub to ignore the file system)

grub> makeactive (Makes the partition active)

grub> chainloader+1

(starts the boot process from the first sector of the partition)

grub> boot (begins the boot process)

This should get Windowsup and running.

If you have installed grub as the boot loader for the Suse installation, the following may get you going (No guarantees I am very much a newbie to linux myself)

grub> root (hd0,1)

grub> configfile (hd0,1)/boot/grub/menu.lst

if you don't succeed with this, you need to find the kernel, which you can do from grub using the following

grub> root(hd0,1)

grub> cat (Hd0,1)/boot/grub/menu.lst

this should give you the kernel details, then try

grub> root(hd0,1)

grub> kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz... (or whatever kernel is setup)

grub> boot


Good luck

Thanks very much methelusah!!

Only one problem though, how do I get grub onto the mbr without reinstalling linux again!!

I do have working knoppix though. Can I modify the grub options through a text file like NTLDR does. Or do I just reinstall linux and set the preferences to put GRUB on the MBR and then type that stuff in when i boot and get to the GRUB command prompt.

Thanks very much for your help.

Boot from a Linux CD, and issue the commandThat will install Grub on the MBR of the first hard drive.

Baldrick

Thank you very much Baldrick!! I will try that this evening when I have left school. I just type that from any shell in knoppix? Or only one in particular?

Should be run as root of course, but from any terminal should be ok.

Baldrick

I tried to install grub on to the mbr using knoppix using the command you (baldrick) sent me although it didn't work. It gave the following message:

mkdir: cannot create directory '/boot/grub' : read only file system

You don't run as root in knoppix, everyone is

I think you gotto remount your hda with r/w
perm's , before trying to write to it.....( first umount...., then mount....).

egag