On Saturday, August 11, 2012 09:41 AM Basil Chupin wrote:
I don't want to use VirtualBox or VMWare. I have a 1TB HDD which is crammed full of empty and unused space. I want to put this space to some use by playing around with more than one systems and distros.
I have created (for now) following partitions on this HDD (sda):
sda1 Windows XP ntfs [INSTALLED EARLIER TODAY] sda2 Extended partition sda5 openSUSE 12.2 [INSTALLED EARLIER TODAY] sda6 swap sda7 (For oS 12.1) sda8 (For os 12.1 - just for the heck of it)
Now, XP of course has its boot sitting in MBR and GRUB in openSUSE 12.2 is using Extended Partition to boot.
Before I go and install oS 12.1 in sda7 I would like to know where do I tell GRUB to boot from - extended partition, just like oS 12.2, or do I use the 12.1 "/" entry for Grub's configuration? If I use the Extended Partition will it overwrite whatever is there for the 12.2 installation?
I am asking because I don't want to spend hours recovering my 12.2 system if I mess the setup in Grub for 12.1. I've looked around but cannot find an unambiguous description of what to use for the 12.1 Grub except that one should not use the MBR (and not only because XP is installed).
All help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
BC
With the Windows code in the MBR you must boot from one of the four primary partitions, whichever is marked active. You don't say how you are controlling whether the MBR calls sda1 vs sda2. In any event, the simplest solution for the 12.1 sda7 instance is to install grub in that partition's boot sector. You can then add a stanza to menu.lst in sda5's 12.2 that chainloads to sda7. Or you can add bypass installing grub with 12.1 and add a fully qualified stanza to sda5's menu.lst that will boot that instance directly. That is, chainloading will have 12.2 grub handing off to the 12.1 grub in the sda7 PBR, while a fully qualified stanza will have 12.2 grub directly calling the 12.1 kernel and root from sda7. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org