Have XP on disk 1 and installed suse on disk 2 now system does not boot?

[lex666]

I have a 250GB SATA disk with XP Pro running and I have an ATA 80GB disk which I formatted to fat32. I installed Suse 10.2 on that disk and after installation rebooted, it fired up Grub 1.5 I think and then stooped with "Error 25" and I am stuck. What do I do?
I am very new to Linux and this is my first instal.

Thanks

Lex

[devils casper]

hi lex666 !

Welcome to the LinuxForums.

you have to re-install SuSe. GRUB is not recognizing your SATA harddisk.
boot up from XP Installation CD and select 'repair'. execute 'fixmbr'. this command will remove GRUB from your SATA disk and machine will boot up Windows on reboot.

unplug SATA disk and plug-in ATA disk as Primary Master. install SuSe,
if SuSe boots up without a problem, we can add an entry for Windows XP in GRUB later on.






Casper

[lex666]

Thanks Casper

I have been reading many threads with your help and have actually done the FIXMBR based on another of your threads. I have also just learnt that my problem (I think) was using partition magic to format the spare ATA disk.

So windows now boots but still no Suse.

Q. DO I have to install from scratch once I unplug the SATA disk on the IDE or will it recover or something?

Sorry for the newbie questions.

Thanks again

Lex

[devils casper]

DO I have to install from scratch once I unplug the SATA disk on the IDE or will it recover or something?

its possible to recover SuSe. but its a bit complicated process.
you will learn a lot of things if you opt to fix SuSe instead of re-install, but it will take a lot of time and sometimes new users get frustated.
i would suggest you to re-install. its better to take a look and feel of Linux before getting deep into it.






Casper

[lex666]

Hi Again

OK I have now unplugged the SATA disk with XP on and and re installed Suse 10.2 and when it reboots after the first part of the install its says:
Booting from local disk...

Then nothing for about 3 minutes

isolinux: Disk error 80, AX = 0201, drive 80

Boot failed: press a key to retry...



Any ideas?

Thanks again

Lex (Newbie)

[davethorp]

I'm now dual booting suse and vista. I did it the hard way though. Installed each os on separate drives while only that one drive is plugged in and then manually configured grub to add the option to boot to windows. Lot of hard work though hopefully it will be easier for you. Its worth it though as as much as I like linux unfortunately windows is on occasions a necessary evil

[davethorp]

Hi Again

OK I have now unplugged the SATA disk with XP on and and re installed Suse 10.2 and when it reboots after the first part of the install its says:
Booting from local disk...

Then nothing for about 3 minutes

isolinux: Disk error 80, AX = 0201, drive 80

Boot failed: press a key to retry...



Any ideas?

Thanks again

Lex (Newbie)

If you only have the linux drive plugged in and getting an error I suspect either something went wrong with the install process or there is a problem with your linux installer CD/DVD

I'd wipe the drive, try again and if you get the same error try downloading and burning linux to disc again. If that fails sounds like a duff drive to me

[lex666]

I am currently using a single boot CD and then I use HTTP to download the required installation files from: http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/f...10.2/repo/oss/

Is it better to get it from CD or should I try an alternate site with a new CD?

How do I format the drive? I used Windows Partition magic last time which caused it's own problems, is there another easy way - just to add to my headache I don't have a FDD either.

Thanks again

[devils casper]

Is it better to get it from CD or should I try an alternate site with a new CD?

How do I format the drive? I used Windows Partition magic last time which caused it's own problems, is there another easy way - just to add to my headache I don't have a FDD either.

try some other source. OR download complete CD pack and install from CDs.






Casper