dual Suse10.2/win2000 system - GRUB not loading

[user_r]

Hello

I've reached a stage with my dual boot system that means I cannot get to GRUB. I've found similar problems and possible solutions on here and elsewhere. It's tempting to try them but I'm a little reluctant, as I feel like I'm digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole.

As an introduction I recently installed suse10.2 on a windows 2000 machine to get the following...

P2 400MHz
primary master: Suse10.2 (10GB)
primary slave: CD
secondary master: Win2000 (4GB)

Originally it was fine - I could boot Suse, although I did something during the install that meant there was no option to boot Win2000.

I had the following options on the boot screen:
openSuse 10.2 (default)
floppy
openSuse (failsafe)


I used Yast Bootloader a couple of times to try to get an option to boot Win2000. In Yast it showed 5 options but GRUB only gave me 3:
Windows (default)
floppy
2.6.18.2-34-default

The windows option didn't work but the "2.6.18....default" did. With a little help finding the kernel I was back in Suse.


Having read up on GRUB I decided to give the Windows boot a try and things really started to go wrong. Initially it didn't work, saying "no such disk".

So I tried with the following options added to the boot 'script':

map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (1,0) [...and (0,0)]
makeactive
chainload (1,0)+1 [...and (0,0 +1)]

This gave the same result: "no such disk"


On the next re-boot, before reaching GRUB, I got "Error loading operating system..."
(with no option but to re-boot with C+A+Del or the button)

Swapping the primary/secondary IDE cables gets me to windows fine (using win bootloader), so I can now see the linux files (with fsdriver)


At this stage I'm hoping I won't have to reinstall Suse - it took all day and night last time. I'd rather try other options but don't want to mess things up even more.

I'm not sure if I've corrupted GRUB or just confused it with the 'map' options I typed in earlier... but I'd really like to know if there's any way back to GRUB from here, so I can at least load Suse??

Any help/suggestion greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

[Mr Nobody]

I say...

Just whack your openSUSE cd or dvd into the drive and then select: "other options" then select fix boot loader thing.

[user_r]

Thanks Mr Nobody,

but there's 2 reasons I don't want to go down that route.

Firstly the installation CD tends to hang while looking for usb devices - before the fix option...

Secondly I'd rather work out where I went wrong so I don't do it again.

I followed Nerderello's instructions to create a grub floppy (http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...d-edition.html), So now I get to the grub> prompt (on the hard drive) when I boot.

The problem now is that I get kernel panic when I try the following:

grub>root (hd0,1)
grub>kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default ro root=/dev/hda2
grub>initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default
grub>boot


>>>>>
Kernel Panic - not syncing. Attempting to kill init!

It worries me that I now have 6 levels of the /boot folder! (ie I can get to (hd0,1)/boot/boot/boot/boot/boot/boot/) and each contains a kernel....

Should I be providing grub with more information? Am I using the wrong /boot folder? Or is it that something's got corrupted along the way?

utterly