I couldn't find the answer in the forums.

I installed SuSE's 64bit system with Gnome a few weeks ago on a new computer that already had WinXP. I let YaST partition the hard drive. Grub seems to be working properly. It has four options; the three that work are SuSE10.1, SuSE failsafe, and windows recovery. The windows os itself will not load since I installed, when I select it from grub it displays a blank screen with a blinking '_' and nothing else. I did run the windows recovery partition to see if it was damaged, but it seemed to be in good order. If the /boot/grub/menu.lst is incorrect how do I change it (I can't figure out how to get root access in Gnome-Nautilus to read and/or change it).

This has options, including allowing Linux to take the whole disk. What exact options did you select?

What is the configuration? eg # and size of drives?

To see the config file and do other stuff, open a terminal and type "su" to become root.
grub config file: more /boot/grub/menu.lst
to edit it: nano /boot/grub/menu.lst ((substitute the name of any text editor for nano))
Also do fdisk -l and post the results here.

Sorry, still a newbie. Here's /boot/grub/menu.lst

linux-3gjm:~ # more /boot/grub/menu.lst
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon Dec 4 14:43:01 UTC 2006
color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE Linux 10.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/sda5 splash=si
lent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 1
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title windows 2
chainloader (hd0,1)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE Linux 10.1
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda6 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off ac
pi=off noresume edd=off 3
initrd /boot/initrd

and here is fdisk -l

linux-3gjm:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 11283 90622665 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 29247 30401 9276120 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 11284 29246 144287797+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 11284 11545 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 11546 14156 20972826 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 14157 29246 121210393+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

The sda1 is WinXP, sda2 is windows recovery, and sda3 is YaST's vreation to make sda5, 6, and 7 for swap, root, and user (I think). Thanks for thelp with the commands, I'm still stuck in sudo from kubuntu.

I see nothing obvious which would be causing your problem.

On thing to try:
First, put grub on a floppy so you can still get to the Linux install:
From a Linux terminal:
grub (starts the grub shell)
root (hd0,5) (tells grub that the /boot directory is on 6th partition of disk 1)
setup (fd0) (put a blank floppy in the drive first)

Now, boot up from Windows CD and run "fixmbr" See if you can now get into Windows. Maybe also run whatever is in the "recovery" partition. I have no experience with that.

Once you get Windows working, you can go back into Linux and put grub back to the mbr.

There is a confusion here.

Suse boots only WIndows 1 and Windows 2. Do you know which one is the Windows recovery that boots successfully?

The Windows recovery is your own term of description, not the one used by Suse according to its menu.lst.

Your sda1 is marked active and I expect that is the partition that boots as Windows needs to be booted from an active partition.

A Linux installer can not tell a XP from a Dos or Win95. If it finds a MS boot loader inside the root partition it will include it for booting regardless if it is bootable or not. That is the likely cause that you end up with two Windows although only one is operational.

My guess is if you XP boots and you can see drive "d", which can only come from sda2 as it is the 2nd partition after "c" then everything is normal. Windows recovery do not boot as far as I am aware. It is just a backup.

To Pixellany: I don't have a floppy drive, will a cd work just as well? Or will the live SuSE cd's allow me to get back as well?

To Saikee: sda1 or Windows 1 is the WinXP (90G), sda2 Windows 2 is the recovery partition (2G). It seems like Windows 2 or the recovery partition boots but does not load a traditional OS. When it did boot drive C was used and drive D was not accessable. I hope this answers your questions.

As for the recovery partition it seems to be a copy of Windows' essential files; so when I ran the recovery it checkes and copies the OS. It also checks hardware for defects, but I can't speak to how reliable it is. In fact it looks very similar to SuSE's repair tools found on the first install disc. I did run SuSE's repair tools to check the hardware as well. Both Win and SuSE think the hardware is good. I appreciate your help and will find a bootable Win disk to try to fix the mbr. Since finding a bootable Win disc might take a while, what is the polite way to let this thread go incative and the reactivate it if I have further questions?

Yes, you can re-install grub from just about any Linux. Your install CD should also provide for booting from the hard disk.

OK I now understand your XP didn't boot with sda1 and the sda2 is in fact a recovery partition storing the system files.

Under the normal circumstance sda2, for being a Dos32 partition with Type c ID, should not boot because it is not "active" but your sda1 is.

To get into the heart of the matter I suggest you have a go to boot up the systems "manually". This is fun and you will learn a lot about booting too.

Suse does not permit manual booting because it uses a gfxmenu statement, which is the 5th line in your men.lst. You can edit /boot/grub/menu.lst by placing a "#" in front of it to disable the line like this
As recent Suse disallows a root log in with the GUI you can do it in terminal mode with statement like
The move will cause Grub to communicate with you directly. On a reboot you will see the see Grub menu but in text mode and pressing the "c" key will drop you into a Grub prompt. In a Grub prompt there is no PC system Grub cannot boot.

You can then proceed to fire up XP with the following commands
The first line will cause Grub to report to you the filing system it has found and that it can't understand the filing system of Type 0x07, as Grub cannot read a xp ntfs partition and that is normal.

The above differs from the menu.lst choice of booting sda1 by (1) No title statement is needed, (b) a makeactive statement inserted to make sure sda1 is active and (c) a "boot" statement is needed to manually every OS in Grub.

Thus the menu.lst contains all the booting instructions you need to boot every system if you do it manually.

Let us know how you get on with the above.

I also advise you to boot sda2 with the following instructions in a Grub prompt
To see if there is any difference from automatic booting.