Hello I'm pretty new to the Linux community and I'm having some problems dual booting. My First Linux was Ubuntu which i gave up pretty fast because i could not get on the internet, then i went to SuSe 10.3 and it works great. The only problem i have is with the Bootloader. With Ubuntu the Grub bootloader found and booted my Vista bootloader and i was able to get to my Windows OS. With Suse I have 3 options that say Windows (then numbered 1-3) and none of them Boot to the vista loader. I have been searching for how to fix this and im not able to find really anything that helps. So how can i set up Grub to go to my Vista Loader. As I said above I'm really new to Linux You may have to explain the exact may to do something.

What does your /boot/grub/menu.lst file contain?

Rest assured nilladar, it can be done. I am dual booting Windows and openSUSE 10.3 right now. Per SilentSam, could you post the contents of your /boot/grub/menu.lst file? Once we can see the entry that is there, we should be able to help you to get Windows to boot again.

I am guessing that you are presently simply unable to boot Windows? This is always scary when you try out a new release and it knocks out your ability to get back to your starting point, in this case Windows.

Here is what my menu.lst entry for Windows is:

Hope this helps.

Like i said I'm pretty new at this. I can find that file im just not sure how to find the contents. When i click on it this comes up "An error occurred while loading media:/sdb3/boot/grub/menu.lst:
Could not read /boot/grub/menu.lst." So im not sure what to do.

Looks like GRUB was installed somewhere else. You can use the RESCUE MODE and go into the system as root. Then run grub and find root. It should tell you which hard drive and partition has the bootloader

Alright i found the code it was where i thought i just wasnt in root. Here it is.

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 10.3
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.5-31-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023A_5JS54VEM-part3 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/sdb2 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.5-31-default



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 1
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title windows 2
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader (hd1,0)+1



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 3###
title windows 3
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader (hd2,0)+1



###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.3
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.5-31-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023A_5JS54VEM-part3 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.5-31-default

The Windows Bootloader is on my main harddrive, on the main partition.

How many hard drives do you have? I wonder if Vista is on the first hard drive and SuSE is on the second along with other windows partition. You don't have an entry like:
which is curious. Do you have a backup from your Ubuntu system. It's menu.lst file might be instructive.
You could get into the grub shell and explore your system until you find drive & partition that has Vista installed.

I Formatted the Ubuntu Drive for SuSe so their shouldn't be anything from that. I do have a menu.lst.old which i open up and reads:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Wed Nov 14 09:21:25 UTC 2007
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd1,2)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 10.3
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.5-31-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023A_5JS54VEM-part3 vga=0x317 resume=/dev/sdb2 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.5-31-default

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title windows 1
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 2###
title windows 2
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader (hd1,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 3###
title windows 3
rootnoverify (hd1,2)
chainloader (hd2,0)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.3
root (hd1,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22.5-31-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_ST3160023A_5JS54VEM-part3 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.22.5-31-default

I have 1 hardrive (Primary) split in two, one for Vista and one for XP. I have another Hardrive (Slave (attached to Mobo)) split in two, One for SuSe and then the other remaining 3/4 for random things. Then one last Hardrive (PCI IDE controller slave) with Pictures, Music, And Movies.

On the OS the way I installed them was XP, Vista, Ubuntu, Delete Ubuntu for SuSe (When i noticed i was not able to boot to windows), Went back to Ubuntu deleting SuSE (and Windows bootloader worked), Deleted that went Back to SuSe and that is where I stand.

You need to find out on which drive Vista is on and in what partition before continuing. Did you say the SuSE, XP, and Vista are on the same drive? Does XP or SuSE boot up? What do you have on the first partition? Maybe XP from the order of installation you gave. I wonder if the BIOS is listing the drives in a different order than GRUB sees them after they are booted. If that is the case, the fix is to edit /boot/grub/devices.map to correct the discrepancy and rerun grub-install /dev/sda1. Or the problem might be that a stanza for Vista is simply missing. Use "fdisk -l" to list your partitions. Also use the grub shell to explore what is in (hd0,0), (hd0,1),(hd1,0), etc to learn which partition is what. Sometimes the BIOS lies saying which is the first drive. Especially if you have a mix of sata and pata drives.

Please list the results of the following commands:

dir /dev/sd*
dir /dev/hd*

Thanks.

It LOOKS like you have windows on hd0 and Linux on hd1 (i.e. Windows on your first drive and Linux on your second)?

If so, the Windows entries in menu.lst look suspicious to me. They should be references, I would expect, to (hd0,0) and (hd0,1), for the two Windows partitions you mention on your first hard drive. This makes sense, since Windows pretty much insists on being on the first partition of the first hard drive.

In your original menu.lst, your "windows 1" entry looks like it ought to do it. To that I would add another "windows 2" that addresses (hd0,1) and try both of these to see if Windows boots.

Good luck! This is tough stuff for a newbie to have to deal with. You are showing excellent patience.

Well in the process of working on fixing this somehow my vista partiton got formatted. So i reinstalled that (and it actually works better than it usally does)and im going to try to reload Suse on to disk since vista took over as man bootloader. I will see what happenes this time around.

Thanks for everyones help

You should't need to reinstall OpenSUSE, you just need to reinstall Grub to the MBR. Then again, if you just installed SUSE and really didn't customize it at all, it probably is easier just to reinstall like you said.

The SuSE install program has a repair option. It can reinstall grub for you.