On 08/03/2011 04:04 AM, LLLActive@GMX.Net wrote:
On 02/08/11 08:37, george olson wrote:
On 8/2/2011 2:13 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2011/08/02 13:44 (GMT+0800) george olson composed:
1. booted with a live linux cd 2. opened a terminal with ctrl-alt-f2 3. typed in the system login: root (no password) 4. went to the grub command system by typing the command "grub" 5. found the partition with the GRUB boot loader with the command find /boot/grub/stage1 6. the partition was noted as (hd0,1) - that is GRUB syntax for the first hard disk, 2nd partition 7. set the GRUB root device to the partition above by typing the command root (hd0,1) 8. installed GRUB on the MBR of the hard drive with the command setup (hd0)
So now you've set yourself to go through the same process all over again next time Windows needs reinstalling. If instead you did 'setup (hd0,1)', left the standard MBR code put there by Windows intact, and changed the active partition (one bit move) in the partition table from the Windows partition to the Linux partition, then next time Windows installation was completed you'd only need to boot something to merely move the active partition bit once again, even Windows, using its FDISK. And, you wouldn't even need to do that much if you create a chainload menu entry in Windows' boot.ini that loads the Linux partition's boot sector stored as a 512 byte file on the Windows boot partition.
Yes that is true, I will have to go through all that again if I want to load windows again. Ultimately I do not really want a dual boot system, but I want to run suse alone and for my few windows applications run them on a windows platform installed in virtualbox. I have seen that some people do that from time to time.
In any case, thanks again for your help! I think I learned a lot about grub, the mbr, chainloaders, and things like that.
George Hi George,
you are describing a odyssey that most of us here have been venturing for a few years. It has a steep learning curve from Win(x), but very rewarding. Trial and error with some web searches and forms like this one is our schoolroom.
I have built a system that allows me some flexibilty to use all systems; Linux (various Distros), Windows (2000 up to 7 Ultimate) and Mac OSX SnowLeopard. I have 2 workstation systems, a PC and an older first generation Intel MacBook. On both systems I have various partitions, both almost the same build-up.
I need the following:
Partitions for Linux and Mac OSX, work environments for Linux and Windows on Virtual Machines for testing and some odd Win-only apps.
On my PC I have multiboot on a 500GB drive for:
3 x Linux versions - each a 20 GB Partition - 1 Live System I use all the time - 1 Test system for new versions of my main system to test before I migrate to it - 1 Test System for other distros like CentOS, Ubuntu, KBuntu and Debian. - 1 MacOSX partition only on the Macbook. It has problems with other FS's like Reiser and Ext3/4. It is the most negative part of Mac OSX, its HFS+. 1 x 2GB swap partition for the Linux partitions
I do not make a separate partition for /home, because I mount a /home drive afterwards as the data directory, with a Data NFS mount from the server.
What I learnt from the Windows days after loosing a lot of data, I never mix Data and OS on the same drives. A small partition on the same drive as the OS's is used to mount as /home into every system, thus keeping the same environment even with newer versions of Linux. A data mount is made under /home/<user>/Data by a NFS share. I have just last week migrated all Data to a RAID 10 Server I built up with Linux over NFS, used an older PC and added 2 3Ware controllers and 4 2TB disks for 300 Euro total. The previous Data Partition is now free for more testing of OS's. Two PC's and the MacBook now use the same data pool. I also do a Backup of the server onto two external 2TB USB disks alternately.
I also use Samba on the Server for Microsoft virtual systems. I have all the Microsoft versions from Win 2000 up to the latest and greatest Win 7 Ultim as virtual machines, which run in VirtualBox on all machines. I also test all Linux distros in VirtualBox first. I only have one virtual machine of each OS on the server. It is a little slower over NFS, but it is only for testing and the odd MS-only usage or programme. I f I need speed, I just copy the image file to the PC or MacBook, use it and delete it afterwards.
I used to also have a Windows partition, but it is all now in VirtualBox.
In this way I have completely flexible workstations and a central data server (just a good PC with Linux and a raid controller).
:-) Al
Wow. That sounds like a great system! Maybe I will arrive at something like that some day! I just installed virtualbox 4.1 and ran it, set up a windows xp machine, ran it, installed what I needed to last night, and then shut down the computers for the night. When opening up my pc this morning, my kde and linux is running fine, but my virtual box machine has an error that says "inaccessible". I will start a new thread with the details on that to see if I can get that started again. ~G -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org