Open Suse 11.1- will not boot

[ilphilo]

Installed Open Suse 11.1 from DVD. On 10Gb clear partition.
All worked fine until I tried to change Boot Priority from Linux to Windows XP
Linux installed on ID-0 alongside XP Proff. on 20GB disk.(FAT32,
Second HD.40 GB, Also has XP Prof under NTFs
I was previously running Open Suse 10.3 and had no trouble booting all 3 OS from bootloader window.
I removed Open Suse 10.3 and installed 11.1
Problem started when I moved XP to Default on priority list.
Now I get message that "No Operating System found" on ID-0 and a request for a boot floppy.
Presumably it does not look on ID-1 for windows because there is no boot partition on that disk.
I have run repair programme from DVD with no help.
I have reinstalled 11.1 and the same problem occured when I changed default to XP.
Any suggestions

Uppdate22.56 - Tried rebooting from DVD- which is not an option as such.
Tried Rescue program and got to login: but no instructions of HOW to login to rescue and what to do afterwards.

Then tried various rather random attempts using DVD and eventually- but How? got a window offering Manual Boot of installed system. Chose that, chose disc, and Suse Linux came up fine. Since it is a new installation there is no content.
I used YAST to open Boot Manager and put Linux up to default. Then restarted computer.
Same message: No operating system, insert boot floppy.

I cant find how to get to :Boot installed system- again so that computer is dead.

What if anything can I do?

16.08.09 9:47 am

What I have done is reinstall Suse 11 for the third time. It iis now up and running and I am using it to write this message.
What I do not know is whether when I restart the computer it will boot anything.
This time I will not change boot order leaving Linux as default.
I will add info when I know.
Have re installed from DVD

10:47 Before I restart the computer I have checked that I can access windows data on first disk
BUT I cannot access data on second disk. When I first installed 11.1 second disc was accessible
as read only

[whych]

Open a terminal and login as root.
do fdisk -l (letter L not 1)
Make a note of the output and check for your windows partitions. The disks will be listed as /dev/sda(number) and /dev/sdb(number).
Still as root, type:
gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
This will open the grub boot loader.
Find your XP entry and you will see an entry
title Windows
rootnoverify (hda,b)
where a is the hard disk number and b the partition number.
The numbering starts from 0 so if the results of fdisk give windows as /dev/sdb1. you enter hd(1,0) for (hda,b)

Usually yast>system>bootloader is pretty reliable. Try it by telling it to propose a new configuration instead of using the old one.

[ilphilo]

Thanks for suggestion.
I will try it when I have time.
Lack of experience with command line so repeated error messages.

[gogalthorp]

You must be root to use the command. Become root in a console by typing

su
then the root password (note the password does not echo to the screen!)

Also a hint Linux is case sensitive, so pay attention to case of commands.

Also you can copy and paste commands but you need to use the edit menu in the console because the normal hot keys do not work there. They are reserved for other uses.