Hello,
I have a multi-boot system with windows and openSuse. The boot loader is from Suse and the menu worked fine. Today I installed Scientific Linux and am having trouble with the boot loader. The SL install is on a different drive than the windows and Suse. As is typical, the SL installer has a boot loader configuration setup and no identifiable way to just add SL to the existing boot loader. When I re-booted after install, I got the suse boot loader with no entry for SL.
I tried super grub disk 2, but I got an error when I tried to boot SL. I tried Boot Repair Disk, but the advanced options I was expecting were greyed out. Normally I would install grub to the MBR of all disks, but those options were not available. I ran it anyway, but now the system just boots into windows.
This process is always very frustrating. There should be a tool that you can boot from a CD that will find all of your OSs and just let you configure your boot loader as you want it. Can someone let me know the best way to get this set up to boot from all my OSs? In Ubuntu, I knew how to run update-grub and that would generally fix issues like this. Is there an equivalent to run in openSuse or a boot tool I can run to fix this?
LMHmedchem
You should be able to use the ubuntu rescue CD/usb. Use that media to start a live session and then you can look at your disk.
I can use a live CD to access my files, but I'm not sure what the best method is to fix the issue. I could use a tool like rescatux to do restore grub and then update grub, but I have never used that tool before. I could do something similar in live ubuntu, but I don't have ubuntu installed anymore and I don't know if that would cause an issue. I don't know what the similar options would be from inside of suse.
I think it's odd that I can't boot the SL install from super grub2. That usually works.
LMHmedchem
If you're not seeing any bootloader then it most likely got wiped out during the installation of SL.
If both Linux use the same GRUB version then it will be a bit easier to just reinstall the bootloader (there are plenty of tutorials in the web about reinstalling GRUB by using a rescue CD).
If one of the distributions is using GRUB while the other uses GRUB2 you'll have to "chainload" the bootlader: Basically use the first (almost empy) bootloader to call the second one and then boot from the selected partition. This should work whether you install it on the MBR or on the first partition of a disk.
Both methods require a bootloader reinstallation, though.