I have 2 hard drives, on my first hard drive (primary) I have Windows XP Pro. This is also where GRUB is being installed. On my second drive (primary-slave) I have installed SuSE 10. I can boot from the installation CD, as I am on the Linux installation now. However, when I try to boot my system on it's own, I receive GRUB Error 17.

I have screens of commands I was told would be helpful, but the no-URL rule prevents me from posting the images that contain the results.

I'm looking for any help on this issue to be able to run my computer normally without having to launch the Linux installation from the boot CD.

And you cannot boot into .... ?

Locok at my question "upgrade linux suse 9.0 to 10.0" or look at the other problems about suse 10.0 sure you wlill find an answer. If not contact me.

I cannot boot into anything. The only way I can boot into anything is if I use the Linux installation CD to boot the installed OS. I am not trying to upgrade either.

first error 17 means grub is in mbr but the attempted partition to be mounted fails.

so we need more info pls

since you can use the cd to boot, pls post your
/etc/fstab file and
/boot/grub.menu.lst file or /etc/grub if you can't find it

(2) have a read of my trouble-shooter......you can press C for commands and try this
root (hd1 and press the tab key
if you know where your /boot partition is .......lets say its /dev/hdb1 the output of the partitions must have a hd1 of a linux format

what I am saying is we can help you with more info but unless you changed your hardware its possible that suse did not link grub in mbr to your booting files or failed due to an unusual for suse partition?

(3) so have a read of tut and trouble-shooter and if frustrated answer my questions and maybe I can answer yours

Hello,
Just a couple of suggestions that I hope will help.
First, grub error 17 means "the partition requested exists, but the filesystem type cannot be recognized by GRUB. " (that's verbatim from the grub manual). From your system description i would conclude that grub is attempting to boot from the xp partition. Note that grub sometimes reverses drive associations when probing the bios. If that is the case you can edit the device.map file.
However, if you don't feel comfortable doing that, start with this:
at the grub prompt type:

find /sbin/init

(again using the system description you provided you should only see one returned; something along the lines of (hd1,1) for example where hd1 would be the drive with suse 10 and the number after the comma will be the / partition.

Since you have installed grub on the xp drive, is there a linux partition on that drive alongside xp? If there is, is it the /boot directory or did you install suse with the os in the same partition as the / root partition (note that 'root' is context sensitive here).

The results of the find command above will tell you which drive (0 or 1) grub sees as the distro drive. If the os is in the same partition (not a separate /boot partition) you can also use the partition in your root statement within grub, ie.

root (hd1,1) if (hd1,1) is what find returned.

After booting from the cd and mounting the suse 10 distro on the 2nd drive look at the results of these 2 commands.
fdisk -l
and
mount
=============
within grub the following 4 should get you going if you plug in the right information where my examples are.
root (hd1,1)
kernel /nameofkernel ro root=/dev/hdb1
initrd /initrd
boot

btw - most people who do a lot of work with grub will set up links to the kernel and the initrd img to avoid having to type long names containing version numbers (for instance, vmlinuz for the ptr to the kernel and a pointer to initrd usually called initrd). initrd is short for initialize ram disk.

Hope this helps; let me know.
jmay

GRUB and LILO always conflict with Windows. And GNU GRUB is not so robust, causing many problems during boot.

So try GRUB for DOS please. It is a cross-platform boot loader based on GNU GRUB. The GRUB.EXE can be started from DOS/Win9x; and GRLDR can be started from BOOT.INI of Windows NT/2K/XP/2003; and even more, the GRUB.EXE can be started from LINUX via the KEXEC tool.

By using GRUB.EXE or GRLDR, you don't have to touch your MBR. It is the safest way coexisting with DOS/Windows.

You needn't install GRUB for DOS. Just run GRUB.EXE from DOS, or append a line of "C:\GRLDR=START GRUB" into your BOOT.INI(restart and select the "START GRUB" menu item), that will do.

Download GRUB for DOS here: http://freshmeat.net/projects/grub4dos/

There is a fat12grldr.img file with the GRUB for DOS release. You can create a GRUB bootable floppy with this fat12grldr.img file.

Or, you can just copy GRUB.EXE to your DOS floppy and run GRUB.EXE to enter the GRUB environment.

If the system has no DOS/WINDOWS, you may use the bootlace.com utility to write GRLDR boot record onto the MBR.