Location of Bootloader?

[DavidMD]

Hello, everyone.

SuSE Linux 8.2 Professional occupies my entire secondary hard drive, and Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro occupy the two partitions of the primary hard drive.

I have PartitionMagic 8 installed on the first partition of the primary drive (Windows 2000 Pro). I am using BootMagic to triple-boot the three operating systems.

My question is: Where should I install GRUB, which is acting as a secondary bootloader (after BootMagic). Currently, I have GRUB mounted on 'dev/hdb2'.

The options for GRUB that SuSE's YaST2 gave me at installation are as follows (if my memory is accurate):

- MBR of 'dev/hda1' (No -- PartitionMagic is there.)
- boot sector of the boot partion
- boot sector of the root partition
- boot sector of the root partition
- floppy disk
- Others

I was told that I should install my bootloader on the superblock to prevent any problems, because GRUB is not the primary bootloader.

As I say, I installed GRUB on 'dev/hdb2', but I do not know if I made the correct selection or not. (SuSE Linux boots with no problems, although I did have to disconnect my external USB Zip 250 drive -- which was not a problem for SuSE 8.0 or 8.1, or the first two installations of 8.2.)

Everything works but I have done several clean installs after experiencing corruptions of KDE -- primarily, the disappearance of all of my title bars and no response to keyboard input, always after looking at the "Styles" options for KDE. (I know that a clean install was not necessary, but I wanted to be certain that all was well.)

I would appreciate any suggestions. I want to make sure that I have GRUB installed in the correct place, taking into account that Linux is on my seconardy hard drive and that PartitionMagic is the primary bootloader on the first hard drive.

Thank you very much, in advance!

Cordially,

David
--
http://ddickerson.igc.org/

[DavidMD]

Hello, again, everyone.

I just wanted to confirm that I have done extensive Google searches on this topic and I have also read the appropriate section of the SuSE Linux 8.2 User Guide.

The latter basically says to accept the default (which would corrupt BootMagic) "unless you know what you are doing." :rolleyes:

I fear that I may have to do a clean installation, because of some problems I am having, so I would greatly appreciate any advice or pointers to appropriate references.

Thank you, in advance! :)

Cordially,

David
--
http://ddickerson.igc.org/

[DavidMD]

Hello, again, everyone.

I apologize for yet another message (I don't normally talk to myself), :) but I wanted to include the results of 'fdisk -l', which you will find at the end of this message.

Thank you for your time and patience!

Cordially,

David
--
http://ddickerson.igc.org/


linux:/ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1459 11719386 1c Hidden Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 1460 7297 46893735 1c Hidden Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/hdb: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 131 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb2 * 132 4865 38025855 83 Linux

[homey]

Normally I would suggest putting the grub bootloader in the MBR but, you want to keep bootmagic. So I guess you may as well leave things alone.

[DavidMD]

Hello, homey!

Thank you for your reply.

Do you think I should put GRUB on the boot sector of the root or boot partition instead? (I am probably going to do a clean reinstall today.)

Thank you, in advance, homey! :)

Cordially,

David
--
http://ddickerson.igc.org/

Originally posted by homey
Normally I would suggest putting the grub bootloader in the MBR but, you want to keep bootmagic. So I guess you may as well leave things alone.

[homey]

You don't have to reinstall to change the location of the bootloader. I prefer to use the MBR for my installations and not the /boot partition but, that is up to you.

I don't have any experience with bootmagic so I can't be of much use there. :( Normally, the grub bootloader can be used without anything else for a small number of operating systems.

If you want to try third party boot managers, there are a couple which I have used.....

XOSL ( free, GUI and user friendly )
Partition Boot Manager ( free trial, semi-GUI, easy to use )
Ranish Partition Manager ( free, semi- GUI, for more experienced users )

[DMR]

Homey's right. Since fdisk shows that you only have a / (root) partition and a swap partition, and you want to keep bootmagic as your primary bootloader, you would install the Linux bootloader on the superblock of the root partition.

If you want to use a Linux bootloader as the primary loader instead of bootmagic, you would install it on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the Primary Master hard drive.

:)

[DavidMD]

Hello, homey and Dave!

Thank you both very much for your educational and helpful replies!

Based upon your comments, I will just leave GRUB where it is.

Cordially,

David
--
http://ddickerson.igc.org/

P.S. -- Could one of you please define the word 'superblock' for me? I see references to it on Linux Web sites and in my Linux books, but nowhere have I read a definition of the word. (I know that I am exposing my ignorance, but -- as a newbie -- how else am I going to learn?) ;) Thank you, in advance! :)

[homey]

I guess this site does a pretty nice job......
http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/663

[DavidMD]

Hello, homey!

Thanks very much! I have bookmarked that Web page.

The superblock describes the parameters of the filesystem, such as the number of blocks, the size of the blocks, the size of the fragments, and the number of inodes. (If you're curious as to what else is defined in the superblock, you'll find all the parameters in man 5 fs.) :)

Cordiallly,

David
--
http://ddickerson.igc.org/