problems installing Open SUSE 10.2 on my system
 

Hi,

I wonder if anybody has a asuugestion or maybe a solution for my problem?

The problem goes as follows:

After inserting the various disks(5 installation cds) and having installed their content on the HD, the installation wizard ( let's just call it this way) asks for a reboot.
The system starts the reboot but during reboot a disk read error occurs.

I get folllowing system log:

Booting ' Open SUSE 10.2'
root (hd1,1)
Error 25: Disk read error

Good to know is that my system ( Intel Pentium IV) previously ran Windows XP. I disconnected the first HD(XP) and reconnected a second empty HD.

Does anybody know what to do?

Greetings, Raka.

Put in your CD1 and reboot.
Press F2 and choose your language and select 'Installation'.

When you get to the screen, that let you select 'New install' etc. you select other options, where you will get a 'Repair option'.

I am quite sure, that you've got some problems with the bootloader.

The errorlog says that the bootloader is looking at the first partition of the *second* hard drive (hd1,1).

If you have chosen to write GRUB to MBR it should point to hd0 = your first or only HD.

SUSE install provides a rescue option to (re)write GRUB to MBR.

I do not really understand the dis- and reconnecting.
Is your first HD at present disconnected? Then hd1,1 points to nothing at all.

If you disconnected the first hd, make sure the second hd is set to Master or CS. If cable select or Master also change your IDE connection to the one that was the first drive.

Yes, hd(XP) is disconnected at present.
Only the empty hd is connected during install of SUSE

If you want to dual boot WinXP and SUSE then:

1. reconnect the 1st HD and ensure that the jumpers on the front end of this HD are set to Master.
2. Ensure that the second HD is set to Slave.
3. Boot from SUSE install CD/DVD and choose Installation.
4. Choose either of two: New install or Upgrade existing installation.
5. CHECK if SUSE suggests to install on hdb = your second drive. This should be so. If not, make sure it does.
6. CHECK if the bootloader is set install to MBR of hda = your 1st drive.
(It is possible that the default suggestion to install GRUB is to do it somewhere on your Linux HD = the second. It is easy to check that: if you reboot after the first phase of installing Linux your WinXP will start and nothing else).

If you *only* want to use the Linux HD then (see post above) check if your HD is set to Master, then just reinstall. Again, CHECK the bootloader configuration suggested by the SUSE installer to stay on the safe side.

The only case I know of that when I told an installer to write the bootloader to MBR of first drive, but the installer nevertheless put it on the second, was with FreeBSD (which I was installing on the 2nd HD), and it was quite some time ago, but I have never encountered that problem with any Linux distribution.

This advice presupposes that you are using PATA (not SATA)/IDE HDs.

I hope this helps.

I was able to complete the installation in repair mode by bypassing the reboot during install, finishing the installation by configuring the rest of the system. However when doing a complete reboot , the same disk read error occurs. So still no solution.

The bootloader is still not correctly installed. However there is no way to configure the bootloader in repair mode. When changing the bootloader configuration in repair mode, the new configuration is not written to disk and folowing error log is generated.

Error occurred during installation of GRUB
------------------------------------------
GNU GRUB version 0.97( 640 k lower / 3072 K upper memory)
[Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word ,
TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists
the possible command completions of a device/filename]
grub> setup --stage 2=/boot/grub/stage2 (hd1,1) hd1,1)
Error 21: Selected disk does not exist
grub> quit

I still have no clue why the 2nd hd is addressed whereas only one hd is active in the system....
Is there a way to change the addressing to hd0 in the bootloader?

However I also tried to boot in rescue mode. The system asks for a login and password which I don't know.
Is there anybody who knows the login and password in rescue mode?

Greetings,Raka.

its probably the root user

Hi, I had a lot of problems installing opensuse 10.2 on my system, and ended up doing a similar thing to you, by disconnecting my Windows drive, as I run Vista and it does not play well with grub. I think your best bet will be to completely reinstall with just your blank drive connected, and in the pre install check that opensuse gives, check the advanced tab at the top, you will see a bootloader option now. Ensure that it is set to write to MBR and nothing else, then go through the install again. This is the only way I got it to work, good luck :)