Newbie - Dual boot issue

[ashwickhouse]

Hello All,

I am a newbie and do not know many detail about Linux. I hope to get some detail (step-by-step) help from some of you expert out there.

My system was previously installed with Windows XP and Suse 10.3. I used GParted to add a new partition and install CentOS 5.1 on this new partition. After complete, now I can only see Windows and CentOS from boot menu. Could someone tell me if it is possible to get back my OpenSuse 10.3 and add it to the Grub menu? basically, I wish to have all three OS running on this system.

Thank you very much.

[Jonathan183]

Welcome to the forums ashwickhouse

Open a terminal and type

su
fdisk -l
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Let us know which is your root partition in SUSE.

[ashwickhouse]

Wow! thank you very much for the fast response.

Here is the /sbin/fdisk -l command gives me:
Disk /dev/hda: 82.3 GB, 82348277760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 5099 40957686 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 5100 10011 39455640 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 5100 5361 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6 5362 7244 15125166 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 7245 8229 7911981 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 8230 10011 14313883+ 83 Linux

I beleive that SUSe 10.3 is on the hda1 and sure that the hda8 contains CentOS 5.1

Below is my menu file:

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd0,7)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda8
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,7)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title CentOS (2.6.18-53.1.21.el5xen)
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/xen.gz-2.6.18-53.1.21.el5 crashkernel=128M@16M
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.1.21.el5xen ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
module /boot/initrd-2.6.18-53.1.21.el5xen.img
title CentOS (2.6.18-53.el5xen)
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/xen.gz-2.6.18-53.el5 crashkernel=128M@16M
module /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-53.el5xen ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
module /boot/initrd-2.6.18-53.el5xen.img
title WindowsXP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Thank you.

[yancek]

When you installed CentOS you wrote over your opensuse bootloader and CentOS did not detect it and make an entry in the grub.conf file for opensuse. hda1 is definitely not opensue as it is ntfs and a windows partition and if you are sure that CentOS is on a sda8 then opensuse is either on hda6 or hda7. Boot up CentOS and as root run the command: mkdir /mnt/opensuse and then run: mount /dev/hda6 /mnt/opensuse, if that doesn't work try:
mount /dev/hda7 /mnt/opensuse

You should then be able to see the opensuse files and go to /boot/grub/menu.lst and copy the entry for opensuse to CentOS grub.conf file.

[Jonathan183]

As yancek indicated SUSE will not be on sda1 it will be on either sda6 or sda7. I suggest you edit the grub menu file and add the following lines, save changes then restart your system and try each option and see which one brings up your SUSE menu.

title suse grub menu (sda6)
root (hd0,5)
configfile=/boot/grub/menu.lst

title suse grub menu (sda7)
root (hd0,6)
configfile=/boot/grub/menu.lst

You can remove the option that does not work.

[ashwickhouse]

Thank you both so very much.

Thing sounds so simple when you know what you are doing.