Triple-boot problems: Windows 7, openSUSE and Knoppix

Banquo · 05-30-2012, 08:36 AM

A while back I attempted to step out of the windows world and try out Linux, so installed Debian along side windows XP. The install was pretty easy and I had no issues. I became sidetracked with other projects but now want to give linux another go.

I have a Gateway LT20 netbook with windows7. First I put KNOPPIX_V6.7.1 on an SD card so I could "try before I buy" if you will. I researched a few other distros and came across openSUSE which really looked interesting. I put openSUSE-12.1-KDE-Live on another SD card and checked it out.

Since I had dual booted Debian and XP so easily before I thought (foolishly) that I could put 3 OSes on my netbook. First to be installed was SUSE. Well after the install I rebooted and Win7 loaded as usual. No bootloader....nothing. However, when I put the SUSE live card back in and booted from there, my HD installed SUSE would load.

I had read that SUSE uses Yast, and thought that when I installed Knoppix that grub would overwrite whatever SUSE had installed and all would be right with the world. GRUB shows :

Quote:

KNOPPIX
Windows
Windows

The 2nd windows entry simply points to root=(hda1,0)
which is my SD card slot. SO, great, I can load SUSE from F12 or my messed up GRUB entry whilst the SD card is in the slot

I guess my questions are:
a) Which OSes bootloader should handle the booting?
b) How do I modify the bootloader files so that all 3 OSes show?
c) How do I deactivate the bootloader I don't want to use?
d) How do I uninstall 1 or both distros and restore the windows bootloader If I need/want to?

Here is what I get with fdisk -l

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x49427e30

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        1567    12586896   27  Unknown
/dev/sda2   *        1568        1580      104422+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3            3045       30402   219746630    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4            1581        3044    11758592    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            1581        1770     1524736   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6            1771        2424     5244928   83  Linux
/dev/sda7            2424        3044     4985856   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 1017 MB, 1017643008 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 123 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0f768eec

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         124      993760+   b  W95 FAT32
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(122, 254, 63) logical=(123, 183, 60)

PHEW! Sorry for the overload and thanks in advance.

yancek · 05-30-2012, 12:48 PM

If your computer booted windows after the Opensuse installation that would indicate that you did not install the Opensuse bootloader to the master boot record but to its partition.

Do you have Knoppix on the SD card?
Are the entries you show for Grub (Knoppix, windows, windows) from the Knoppix Grub?
If that is the case, just install the Opensuse Grub to the master boot record. I'm not sure which version of Grub (Legacy or Grub2) the current Opensuse uses. The method will differ.

Banquo · 05-30-2012, 02:14 PM

Yes, the 3 entries are from the Knoppix Grub and Knoppix is on an SD card. How do I go about installing grub from within SUSE? (uber-noob question). If i need to update GRUB i will be unable to do so as I have not been able to get my Broadcom drivers to work with SUSE yet.

yancek · 05-30-2012, 03:58 PM

If you are able to boot Opensuse on your hard drive, you will first need to navigate to the /boot/grub folder. Take a look to see if you have a menu.lst file or a grub.cfg file. menu.lst is the file for Grub Legacy. If that is what you have, open a terminal and login as root user, then type "grub" (without quotes) and you should see a grub prompt which looks like: grub>

If your system partition is sda6, you would enter the following, hitting the Enter key after each line:

root (hd0,6)
setup (hd0)
quit

If Opensuse is using Grub2, boot the Opensuse LiveCD, open a terminal, log in as root. Again, if your system partition is sda6 you would need to execute first: mount -t ext4 /dev/sda6 /mnt (hit the Enter key)
then execute: grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sd6

If you have a separate /boot partition or if sda6 is not your /boot or / partition you will have to change the entry.

Banquo · 05-31-2012, 08:54 AM

That did the trick! Thank you!