Hello!

I installed SuSE Linux 9.1 Personal on it's own partition..
and during the installation process I made a partition for windows..

SuSE worked perfect!

and today, I installed Windows XP Proffesional on the windows partition..

when I boot my computer, it goes to XP directly!!

how can I access Linux?

and how can I set it to let me choose what OS I want?


Please help guys!

Windows writes it's own boot manager directly to the MBR meaning you can't access linux. Some people will tell you to reinstall GRUB/LILO but when I used to dual-boot I found using NTLDR (windows boot manager) was much easier and painless. Just google for BOOTPART, it's a DOS app that'll add your linux partition to your boot.ini file. Very easy to follow instructions, however I *think* you need a linux boot manager installed on your linux partition but that's something to look into.

windows overwrote the mbr(as it always does). boot with suse disc one in the drive. within a few screens it will give you the option to 'boot installed system'. once back in suse start yast, select the bootloader configuration section to rewrite the mbr.

thanks for the replies!

but I tried using the SuSE CD to boot into the installed linux.. didn't work, there's no option to let me boot into installed SuSE..

I also downloaded BOOTPART.. but I can't figure out how to add Linux to the boot menu.

seems like I can't boot into linux..

all I want is to add linux to the boot menu.

Any suggestions are very welcome... please help

Come on guys!!

use your XEON brains!!

SuSE's installation disk should be able to re-install Grub or Lilo onto your HD's MBR. You should NEVER re-install Windoze on a Linux box. Micro$haft will always try to over-write the MBR.

In SuSE, you must select your system to boot from the CD-drive. When given the installation options, choose Rescue System (page 12 of the SuSE 9.1 Professional manual). Rescue System ought to allow you to re-install Grub as the bootloader...

I tried the Rescue thing with the SuSE CD..

it hangs in the "choose language thing"...

F*** MICROSOFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Muahahahhahaha a
I do support for windows xp as a job :P
as you can see from my profile

Yes xp has a boot manager that installes into the mbr of the disk you cannot add linux to its boot list <-- this is explicitly forbidden

You need another boot manager like lilo or grub.

What you need to do is boot from a rescue linux distro like injectionlinux or knoppix

then mount your linux parttion somewhere well call it /mnt/linux

then type the following command
chroot /mnt/linux /bin/bash

this will give you a new prompt and your in your suse distro command mode root

then fix your boot manager by lilo or grub


getting windows to boot from lilo or grub is your issue to figure out.

Ah!

Thank you very much.. I'll try that tonight..

but if it doesn't work... I WILL ERASE EVERYTHING!

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! 2 DAYS WITHOUT LINUX ?!

that odd, i've used the "boot installed system" option several times from the suse disks after i've hosed my mbr, so i know it's there somewhere.

And that's wrong. I've done it before.

DJ P@CkMaN


How did you do it?!

please post me a link or anything..

Thanks!

It's been a while but from memory you need GRUB or LILO installed on your linux partition. Most distros allow you to configure this sort of stuff about the bootloader during setup. Then when you reboot after setup you'll naturally get Windows because the linux bootmanager isn't in the MBR. Then you run BOOTPART and it'll spit out a list of your partitions, then run it with the required arguments to get your linux partiton (the text file it comes with is very good) and it'll create a file by the name you specify and a record in your boot.ini. Then reboot the machine and press F8 at the start to get to the NTLDR menu and your linux install should be there, select it and away you go.

So I'd assume you need to boot from your SuSE CD and try and install the loader onto your linux partition and then boot into Windows and do the rest...

The best option would be to reinstall GRUB or LILO into the /boot partition (not the mbr) and then install a third-party boot-loader like XOSL.

Make sure then that XOSL points to the /boot partition and not the / partition of Linux because otherwise Linux will not boot.