GRUB bootloader error#18; SUSE 10.2

[optoamp]

I'm trying to install SUSE but nothing will boot - I only get bootloader "error #18."


o My machine has Windows XP and I want to create a dual-booting system.

o Some months ago I tried Mandriva One (live CD) and sucessfully made a partition for linux and it installed LILO which dual-booted to windows just fine.

o Lately I downloaded SUSE 10.2 (DVD ROM, X64), cleared the former linux partition and installed SUSE.

o Upon first boot GRUB got stuck with error code #18. The install program on the DVD seems to recognize (some sort of) problem but can't fix it.

o So I'm stuck and can't boot anything except the live Mandriva CD (Great idea those), and a perplexed install program.

What steps can I take to fix this problem?

Optoamp

[adaykin]

what did you use to clear the linux partition?

[optoamp]

I used the partition manager in Windows.

[adaykin]

there's one built into windows??

[devils casper]

something wrong in GRUB configuration files. did you create partitions manually during installation?
boot up from SuSe Installation CD/DVD and Select Boot from Harddisk. check if SuSe boots up.






Casper

[dth1]

it is usually best to install suse onto blank space rather than already formatted partitions. did you just delete the mandriva partitions and leave the created space as free space?

[optoamp]

Yes - I deleted the Mandriva partitions and let SuSE configure however it wanted by default.

Unfortunately no clean install for me - I have invested in too many Windows-only programs. Windows must stay where it is until I've seen what WINE can do.

Back to the boot - I reasoned that if Mandriva figured out how to share the boot sector with Windows SUSE would as well. I have found a work-around though;

o I reinstalled the Mandriva One live disk which had a working LILO dual boot configuration.

o In the SUSE setup I switched from GRUB to LILO and had it copy the existing configuration + display the boot menu.

This worked; but as it was just a work-around and not a solution I would still like to know how GRUB could have been configured to do the same thing.

(I'm still logging in through Windows because of an NVIDIA driver crash, but I'll look somewhere else in the forum for that

Thanks -
Optoamp

[devils casper]

This worked; but as it was just a work-around and not a solution I would still like to know how GRUB could have been configured to do the same thing.

Most of installers detect other installed distros and configure GRUB accordingly. if you install SuSe after Mandriva, it will detect Mandriva and add entry in GRUB.

a few distros, like Mepis, RedHat and Fedora doesn't detect other installed Linux Distros. in that case, add an entry of other distro ( title, root, kernel and initrd lines) in menu.lst/grub.conf file.