I have been looking for similar problems to my own all over the forums, but can't find anyone who has had this problem.

This is my current partition/drive setup..

hda1 (120GB) = Windows (NTFS)
hda5 (1GB) = swap
hda6 (15GB) = /
hda7 (17GB) = /home

hdb1 (160GB) = NTFS (Not touching this, it's for Windows ONLY)

The problem comes about during the first reboot after the SuSE 10.1 installation of disc 1. I attempt to boot to the hard disk where I assume I am suppose to be greeted with the GRUB screen to choose my OS. But it just sits there, attempting to boot to the hard disk. Nothing happens (but it is not frozen). I installed the boot loader on /dev/hda6 and changed the hard drive order so that 'hda' comes before 'hdb' and set Windows to be the default OS.

Does anyone know why after installing disc 1, which DID install the bootloader, I cannot get GRUB to load? What I do to fix this so I can get back into Windows, is boot up SDISK. It gives me an error that there is no active primary partition and would I like to make one? so I set 'hda1' to be the active, and it boots straight to Windows just fine. Should I be setting 'hda6' to be the active primary partition?

Interesting, I am currently running 10.1 using grub as my bootloader for SUSE 10.1, Kubuntu, Windows XP, and OSX.

The first thing I would try would be to use the suse install disk to run a "repair". It is pretty automatic and generally works well. I used it to fix my bootloader when I installed windows AFTER linux (intentionally). I cannot reboot right now to get work instuctions but if you have a problem let me know. I will be happy to document the steps I took, I just have to simulate them to refresh my memory.

Cheers

-Matt

Repair? I have the option to boot into a repair console I believe it was called, or System Repair or something, but that just dumps me at a console. Then what do I do? Thanks btw.

EDIT: Also, if it is a type of installation, I should say that the only options I am given is New Installation and Upgrade. I wasn't able to actually complete the installation, since after I finish disc 1 (of 5), I have to reboot, boot to the hard drive, then continue the installation that way.

Just an afterthought, but SDISK, when I used it to fix the booting of Windows, told me that there was no active partition, so I set it to 'hda1'. Once I thought, I realized, shouldn't 'hda6' be the active partition considering that is where the bootloader is? It is still trying to boot to 'hda1' because that is what the MBR is telling it to do (right?) I edited the first post in this threat to reflect my new thoughts.

The bootloader should be installed to the MBR of hda, not on one of the partitions. In the current situation, you need an additional medium (floppy/CD/USB stick or other bootloader) to "find" the bootloader on hda6.

When you boot from the installation CD, do you get the option "Boot from harddisk"? Try this and re-install grub with YaST.
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:The_Boot_Manager_Grub

I thought it was very very bad to overwrite the MBR...Windows is suppose to throw a shitfit if you delete it. I suppose it's worth a shot, I have Sdisk that can delete the MBR is there is a problem.

Since the Windows bootloader doesn't allow to load Linux under normal circumstances, you'll need something to do the job. This bootloader has to reside in the MBR. It is usually no problem to load Windows from the Linux bootloader. Even if things break, you can re-write the Windows bootloader from its installation CD.

Thats a very good point. I will give it a shot, and you're right, I can just rewrite the MBR with the installation CD. I really wish I knew how Ubuntu dealt with this situation. It is so idiotproof, that all I had to do was pop in the Live CD, start the installer, and it did the rest practically on it's own. Thanks

Edit: Here's a thought. What if I were to install the bootloader to the MBR of the SECONDARY hard drive and just change the boot order in the BIOS? Can that be done with the SuSE installer? That drive is just a dump drive for ISOs and LAN party stuff, and I would still keep all the installations on the primary drive, but the bootloader would reside on the secondary drive. That way, I wouldnt have to touch the MBR of the primary Windows OS drive at all.

It's possible, but if you load a Windows system from a second HDD, you need to do some modifications in the Linux bootloader: http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Booting_W..._the_Second_HD

You can also use the Windows bootloader to load Linux, but you need a copy of the bootsector and I don't know how to retrieve this from your hda6 partition. EDIT: It's explained here: http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Booting_L...P_Boot_Manager

The only thing on that second hard drive is just random files on an NTFS file system, no operating system. I just ran home and tried it (I work like 2 minutes away) and installed the Bootloader on the second hard drive. SuSE works great, but when I choose to boot to Windows in GRUB, I get the fairly common 'chainloader (HD1,0)+1' message. Isn't this lovely? Got a fix?

BTW, SuSE's Grub boot screen is preeeeeety So much better than Ubuntu/Kubuntu's