Boot problem with openSUSE on Compaq Presario V6000 laptop

Vesa Tenhunen

I bought a Compaq Presario V6000 (or, to be precise, V6508EO) laptop and
now I'm struggling to get it to dual-boot with preinstalled Windows Vista
and openSUSE 10.2 or 10.3.

First I did a CD installation of version 10.2. Hardware detection,
partitioning and copying files to hard disc all went well, but when it was
time to continue after a reboot, it was like nothing had been installed:
the machine booted straight to Windows. No sign of SUSE or GRUB or any
other Linux-related stuff. I checked the BIOS to see if there was some
kind of virus protection that prevents writing to MBR, but found nothing.

I started again the installation and now chose "Other options" and then
"Boot installed system". That way SUSE did start and continued the
installation. But GRUB won't work and every time after restart I get only
Windows. Hoping for a better hardware support, I tried next 10.3 RC1. But
still no GRUB - only way to get SUSE running is to go through the
installation CD.

I suspect the fault is in the partition scheme (see below) and /boot
should be nearer to disc start. But the Windows partition is pretty much
unmovable. O&O Defrag refused to move some locked files so it's probably
also as small as it can be.

The hard disc is partitioned like this:

Device Size Type Mount Start End

/dev/sda 149.0 GB Hitachi-HTS54161 0 19456

/dev/sda1 60.5 GB HPFS/NTFS /win/c 0 7900

/dev/sda2 61.0 GB Extended 7900 15863

/dev/sda3 19.9 GB Linux native / 15863 18473

/dev/sda4 7.5 GB HPFS/NTFS 18474 19456

/dev/sda5 30.0 GB Win95 FAT32 /win/e 7900 11817

/dev/sda6 28.0 GB Win95 FAT32 /win/f 11947 15603

/dev/sda7 1.9 GB Linux swap swap 15603 15863

(/dev/sda4 contains the files for recovering and reinstalling Vista.)

Here are the technical specs of this PC: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 processor,
2 GB RAM, Hitachi 160 GB SATA-HD, integrated nForce 10/100BT Ethernet,
Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN, NVIDIA GeForce 7150M display adapter.

I really appreciate it if anyone can help me in fixing this.

Vesa

--
"It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit.
Maybe it was like an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another
fight, away from the first fight."
- Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

Bob Bob

First thought is whether the laptop has "virus protection" enabled in
its BIOS so the MBR cant be overwritten. What you have described fits
that cause.

Granted there may be other reasons but I'd put that one at 99%!

Cheers Bob

Vesa Tenhunen wrote:
>
> I bought a Compaq Presario V6000 (or, to be precise, V6508EO) laptop and
> now I'm struggling to get it to dual-boot with preinstalled Windows Vista
> and openSUSE 10.2 or 10.3.

Rajko M.

Vesa Tenhunen wrote:

> I bought a Compaq Presario V6000 (or, to be precise, V6508EO) laptop and
> now I'm struggling to get it to dual-boot with preinstalled Windows Vista
> and openSUSE 10.2 or 10.3.
>
> First I did a CD installation of version 10.2. Hardware detection,
> partitioning and copying files to hard disc all went well, but when it was
> time to continue after a reboot, it was like nothing had been installed:
> the machine booted straight to Windows. No sign of SUSE or GRUB or any
> other Linux-related stuff. I checked the BIOS to see if there was some
> kind of virus protection that prevents writing to MBR, but found nothing.
>
> I started again the installation and now chose "Other options" and then
> "Boot installed system". That way SUSE did start and continued the
> installation. But GRUB won't work and every time after restart I get only
> Windows. Hoping for a better hardware support, I tried next 10.3 RC1. But
> still no GRUB - only way to get SUSE running is to go through the
> installation CD.
>
> I suspect the fault is in the partition scheme (see below) and /boot
> should be nearer to disc start. But the Windows partition is pretty much
> unmovable. O&O Defrag refused to move some locked files so it's probably
> also as small as it can be.
>
> The hard disc is partitioned like this:
>
> Device Size Type Mount Start End
>
> /dev/sda 149.0 GB Hitachi-HTS54161 0 19456
>
> /dev/sda1 60.5 GB HPFS/NTFS /win/c 0 7900
>
> /dev/sda2 61.0 GB Extended 7900 15863
>
> /dev/sda3 19.9 GB Linux native / 15863 18473
>
> /dev/sda4 7.5 GB HPFS/NTFS 18474 19456
>
> /dev/sda5 30.0 GB Win95 FAT32 /win/e 7900 11817
>
> /dev/sda6 28.0 GB Win95 FAT32 /win/f 11947 15603
>
> /dev/sda7 1.9 GB Linux swap swap 15603 15863
>
> (/dev/sda4 contains the files for recovering and reinstalling Vista.)
>
> Here are the technical specs of this PC: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-58 processor,
> 2 GB RAM, Hitachi 160 GB SATA-HD, integrated nForce 10/100BT Ethernet,
> Broadcom 802.11a/b/g WLAN, NVIDIA GeForce 7150M display adapter.
>
> I really appreciate it if anyone can help me in fixing this.
>
> Vesa
>

Have you tried to reinstall grub using YaST -- System -- Boot Loader?
See also this:

though your windows entry is probably OK.

Is your linux partition active?
From root console run:
fdisk -l
you should see * next to linux partition if it is active (bootable), like
this:
/dev/sda3 * 3135 6672 28410952 83 Linux

If YaST doesn't work you may try
grub-install /dev/sda
but check first file /boot/grub/device.map
If you are not sure is it right, post it here.

--
Regards,
Rajko.

Vesa Tenhunen

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:24:03 -0500, Rajko M. wrote:

> Have you tried to reinstall grub using YaST -- System -- Boot Loader?

No, I haven't. But now that I did, the problem is solved. Thank you very
much!

I always thought that Grub defaults to writing in MBR, but it had used the
boot partition on /dev/sda3 instead. Apparently that goes out of the 1024
sector range. So, thanks to your tip, I changed it to load from MBR and
now dualbooting works fine.

Vesa

--
"Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called
an enemy planet."
- Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts

Rajko M.

Vesa Tenhunen wrote:

> I always thought that Grub defaults to writing in MBR, but it had used the
> boot partition on /dev/sda3 instead. Apparently that goes out of the 1024
> sector range. So, thanks to your tip, I changed it to load from MBR and
> now dualbooting works fine.

Thank you for the feedback.

They use now generic boot loader in MBR, that knows only how to give control
to boot sector of active partition. Though, some older systems with new
high capacity drives may have problem.
(as you noticed)

Did you filed bug report on ?

--
Regards,
Rajko.

Rajko M.

Vesa Tenhunen wrote:

> I always thought that Grub defaults to writing in MBR, but it had used the
> boot partition on /dev/sda3 instead. Apparently that goes out of the 1024
> sector range. So, thanks to your tip, I changed it to load from MBR and
> now dualbooting works fine.

Thank you for the feedback.

They use now generic boot loader in MBR, that knows only how to give control
to boot sector of active partition. Though, some older systems with new
high capacity drives may have problem.
(as you noticed)

Did you filed bug report on ?

--
Regards,
Rajko.