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dual boot with suse n rehhat

Jun 11, 2009  By rehanzz
 in

Hi all,

I goal is to install suse 10 and RHEL 5 on different LUNs, and in the bootloader i need to get option to switch.I have installed SUSE in LUN 0 successfully completed the installation it came up.For the second OS ie.RHEL i changed the boot sequnce in BIOS to LUN 1 and installed (with out boot loader) succesfully....I went to /boot/grub/menu.lst and added the the new OS to the grub like
title suse
root(hd1,0)
kernal Path
initr path

But when i select SUSE in grub it is showing grub loaderror.
Can anyone tell me what are all the configuration changes i should make to achive my goal..

‹ Kernel not booting from grub.conf audio driver and I2C ›

You Should be Close

Mitch Frazier's picture
Submitted by Mitch Frazier on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 10:10.

This is a bit confusing, you installed SuSE and it boots, then you installed RedHat and it doesn't boot, yet the grub entries you're trying to "fix" refer to SuSE... I'll assume that that's a typo and it's actually RedHat that won't boot from the second drive.

The most likely problem is that you have the "root" entry incorrect, you're probably specifying the wrong drive.

Boot into SuSE and run:

  $ grub --device-map=test.map
  grub> quit
  $ cat test.map
  (fd0)   /dev/fd0
  (hd0)   /dev/sda
  (hd1)   /dev/sdb

Use the map that grub creates to verify that the drive you've specified in your "root" entry corresponds to the drive that contains RedHat.

If that doesn't help post your menu.lst file here and also your /boot/grub/device.map file.

Also note that you probably made this more complicated than it needed to be, most modern Linux installers will allow you to install on a second drive and will correctly fix/install the boot loader so that everything works. At least in theory.

Mitch Frazier is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal.

dual boot with suse n rehhat

rehanzz's picture
Submitted by rehanzz on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 04:49.

Hi,

I have checked the test.map file it is fine.and the output of /boot/grub/device.map is
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb

can u please tell me what are all the configuration changes should be made for SAN boot with single boot loader right from the installation of suse and RHEL.I am new to linux.During installation i have made only the changes like RHEL with bootloader at /dev/sda and SUSE with boot from root partition.Is it correct? If not can u guide me to do this..........

I am able to install windows in LUN 2 and i am able to boot from it....Then y is it not possible for SUSE..?Please guide me....

thanks in advance........

More Info

Mitch Frazier's picture
Submitted by Mitch Frazier on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 10:19.

Post a copy of your /boot/grub/menu.lst and also a listing of the partitions that you have on the two drives. You can get a list of the partitions via:

  $ fdisk /dev/sda
  ...
  Command (m for help): p
  ...
  Command (m for help): q

Then do the same for /dev/sdb.

Also, explain to me how you're getting Windows to boot from the second drive? Is it booting via grub or ...?

Mitch Frazier is an Associate Editor for Linux Journal.

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