XP/Suse - install went fine but Grub won't boot
 

This one has me baffled. I had used my Suse 9.2 DVD to dual boot one machine. I decided to do the same to another machine. I took the same DVD for install. My machine has an 80 Gb drive - ~60 Gb to XP and 20 Gb blank.

As before, Suse recognized the 20 Gb space, and I asked for a normal installation (just like before). Suse installed, but then after the end when it reboots (and you continue by setting up root password, etc.), Grub just hung there. It went through normal BIOS checks and then the screen just sat there with the word "GRUB" but no further! :(

What baffles me is that I did pretty much the same thing the first time and it was fine! I did notice however that on the first machine, I got a window asking me about bootloader options. I asked for GRUB to overwrite the MBR. This time, I didn't even get the prompt! The install set /dev/hda1 mapped to /Windows/C, /dev/hda2 as /swap, and /dev/hda3 as /

I tried to do a repair using the DVD and asked it to check GRUB, but it said everything was fine. During the checks though, I *thought* I noticed /boot as being on /dev/hda3 - perhaps this is wrong? But if it did install in the wrong place, how come the MBR is trying to be GRUB?

I tried searching but no luck. Can anyone help?

Update: I started the installation DVD again - this time chose "update" - from there I was able to select 'boot into existing system"

From there, it continued the original installation! It started by asking for root password and then user account info, etc. Finally, it started Suse. I checked /boot/grub/menu.lst and it looked like my other install. The Linux boot line pointed to /dev/hda3

However, on restarting, I'm getting the same hang - just sitting there with GRUB written on the screen. I'm guessing somehow this info didn't get written to the MBR, but I'm not sure.

I would assume some BIOS related problems. Maybe you can play around with the BIOS setting for your controller/drive (RAID modes, LBA, disable unused controlers, etc.). Another option would be to have a try with LILO.

Hmm - well, nothing unique with the BIOS. A very basic PC build: 1 IDE hard drive, one IDE DVD drive, etc.

Would this explain why I never even got the box askind me about which bootloader to use?

Try this Link might help:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/topic-42918-24.html

This is a common problem with XP I'm surprised that this is still an issue with Suse 9.3??

Hmmm... read through that, but didn't get much help out of it. Like I said, I did the same thing on another machine - also with XP - and didn't have much trouble at all. Don't know why it's happening now...

Hope this helps
 

Did you follow this thread?

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/pos...hlight=#108512

This has been a very strange problem indeed. After trying to recover my Windows boot and failing, I decided to purchase another hard drive (good sale prices). I planned to install XP on the first partition and then Suse on the second like before. But during the XP installation, I kept getting the message "Error Loading Operating System" ! Pages and pages of Google searching didn't help - except to say that this problem is not that uncommon! And typically the concensus was that the MBR wasn't working properly. But repeated formats and reinstalls didn't work.

I finally solved the problem by first going into Knoppix Live CD and wiping out the MBR. I then set the hard drive access mode in BIOS from Auto to LBA. A clean install of XP worked, and subsequently Suse even installed fine (including Grub overwriting the MBR)! Go figure.