installing openSUSE 10.2 on a dual booting Vista/XP system

[ampster]

Hello and thanks for the nice bootloader app! Comes in handy when trying to work with a new bootloader such as what Vista provides.

I'm having trouble getting openSUSE to fully install onto a working dual boot system. I'm not quite sure how to modify GRUB (if that's what is needed) to get past the "GRUB_ in the upper left corner on a black screen" problem that so many ppl are having it appears.

Just bought this computer over the weekend that came with Vista and XP already loaded using what appears to be the Vista bootloader. Those two O.S.'s are on the sda drive which has been partitioned into three drives. One for Vista, one for XP and one empty drive for data storage. I've installed two other physical drives as well, sdb which is partitioned into two drives, one for /, and the other for /home. The last drive is hda which will be partitioned into two drives, one for a swap for linux, and the other for a fat32 FS to share data between the ntfs sda drive and the ext3 sdb drive.

first attempt was to install GRUB on sdb1, which will hold the openSUSE install. I somehow got lucky and apparently guessed the right drive and partition numbers in EasyBCD (1.52 BTW) when setting up the third entry for openSUSE. I say i got lucky because I got the GRUB _ black screen deal on the first try. The drive and partition numbers I used were 2,1 - going by what the System Information link under the Useful Utilities button presented - heck I am not even sure if that is a app that EasyBCD provides or if that link goes right to the Vista system information - I'm still lost trying to find my way around Vista!

other attempts I never even made it that far, I got either a black screen or some verbiage about missing files in that NST directory when attempting to boot into openSUSE in order to finish the installation.

I'm not positive I can even get into the partially installed openSUSE in order to run those dd commands I've read in other posts here.

When I mean partially installed, I mean I made it thru the first part of installing openSUSE, then half way thru the install it reboots (Novell picking up on M$ habits already? LOL). That first reboot happens right after the software install and just before setting up the root and users accounts.

as you may tell from my ranting - I'm not too technically keen - just enough to get myself in trouble!

Any advise on how to get openSUSE installed and working with EasyBCD? Nice software (EasyBCD that is) - although I'm still a little leary letting MS control my boot process!

Tks
Steve

[Computer Guru]

Hey Steve, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies!

Don't worry about the technical details - live and learn!

Anway, if editing GRUB is a bit difficult, I recommend you use the in-built NeoGrub bootloader (from the add/remove entries screen) in EasyBCD to boot your linux. Give it a shot and let us know!

[ampster]

thks for the reply Guru.

I ended up just installing grub on the mbr, letting opensuse's grub take care of the first part, then vista's bootloaded kicks in and lets me choose which version of MS to load.

tks again
Steve

[Computer Guru]

Yeah that works too Steve - so long as you don't mind the extra boot menu before getting into Windows..

[ampster]

doesn't the NeoGrub bootloader provide two boot menus as well? I might be confusing that with something else.

[Computer Guru]

Technically: yes. But since you only have one Linux, you can set the timeout to zero, and it'll be as if it doesn't exist.

BCD-> Vista
   -> NeoGrub -> Linux

vs.

Grub -> Vista -> Several Windows
Grub -> Linux