Add Debian to GRUB boot menu

[saint_geser]

Hi everyone!
Hope you're having a good time

I have a small problem with my openSUSE 11.1.
On my home PC I have openSUSE and Debian installed. Yesterday when I was installing openSUSE during GRUB configuration the system didn't find my Debian installation which is on sda5 and instead added a windose booting option for FAT32 partition where there is no windows whatsoever. So now in the GRUB menu I have:

1) openSUSE 11.1 - sda1
2) MS Windows - sdb
3) (failsafe) openSUSE 11.1

I tried to change it with YaST but somehow when I reboot it goes back to initial settings.... wtf !?
I also tried to add an Debian image to the boot menu but somehow it didn't work as well.... seems like I'm totally useless...

Can you please explain how configure GRUB properly?

Thanks in advance =)

[MikeTbob]

When you use Yast, you must be root or sudo...this may be why it won't accept the changes you made.
Boot up any Linux kernel and post the output of these commands please.

fdisk -l

(Lowercase L)

cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

Again, depending on how your system is setup, you need to be root or use sudo for each command.

[saint_geser]

So the output from fdisk:

 Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1       31417   252357021   83  Linux
/dev/sda2           34421       60800   211897350    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda3           31418       34420    24121597+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda5           34421       60800   211897318+   7  HPFS/NTFS

hmmm... I'm pretty damn sure that my Debian partition is ext3... why does it say NTFS? Or am i missing something?

....and from menu.lst:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Wed Oct 28 10:30:02 UTC 2009
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-9
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-9-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2QZ6A-part1 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2QZ6A-part3 splash=silent showopts vga=0x317
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-9-default

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.1 - 2.6.27.7-9
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.7-9-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2QZ6A-part1 showopts ide=nodma apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 x11failsafe vga=0x317
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.7-9-default

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
    map (hd3) (hd0)
    map (hd0) (hd3)
    rootnoverify (hd3,0)
    makeactive
    chainloader +1

you must be root or sudo...

I'm not THAT much useless he-he....

[MikeTbob]

I don't see a Debian partition here. I see Suse is on Hda1, sda2 is extended partition, sda3 is swap, and finally an NTFS partition. Did you install Suse over the top of Debian?

[saint_geser]

Yeah, that is the idea
Debian partition is sda5 as i mentioned before but i'm 100% sure it is ext3 not the bloody NTFS.... that would be crazy to install linux on ntfs, wouldn't it?

Right now it is mounted on my system and i can access the root folder of Debian...

[saint_geser]

That it mega-weird.... This is output from fstab and here partitions are named properly. Hmmm.... why is fdisk output different?

linux-svh3:/home/cherep # cat /etc/fstab
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2QZ6A-part3 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2QZ6A-part1 /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2QZ6A-part5 /media/Debian        ext3       defaults              1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-WDC_WD32_00BEVT-00ZCT0_WDC_WD3200_WD-WXEZ07F49109-0:0-part1 /media/New_volume    ntfs-3g    users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3500630AS_5QG2PJ71-part1 /media/Video          vfat       users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

[devils casper]

Try to mount /dev/sda5 partition.
Execute this

su -
mkdir /media/sda5
mount /dev/sda5 /media/sda5

Post output here.

[D-cat]

I'm going to guess that when partitioning for the SuSE install, the table somehow got snafu'd by one character. If I'm right, a simple fdisk to correct the partition ID will fix it.

[saint_geser]

Try to mount /dev/sda5 partition.
Post output here.

it's already mounted at /media/Debian , look at the output from fstab.

If I'm right, a simple fdisk to correct the partition ID will fix it.

Thanks, I'll try this once I get back home from holiday...

[devils casper]

it's already mounted at /media/Debian , look at the output from fstab.

fstab entry doesn't ensure that partition has been mounted or not. Check the contents of /media/Debian folder and output of df -h command.

Do not execute fdisk command unless you know that what are you doing. I would suggest you to use Testdisk to correct partition table entries. Its available in PartedMagic LiveCD.