Linux broke my PC

[JoeEllison]

I just installed OPENSUSE 10.3 on an extra hard drive... and I don't like it. Now, though, I cannot get back into Vista. So, I go back to Suzy... and it tells me that my hard drive is failing. Which hard drive? It wouldn't say.

I'm so very, very screwed.:(

[bokonon]

If you installed OpenSuse on an extra hard drive, what's the problem? Can't you just remove the extra hard drive you installed it on, and boot from the original Vista drive?

If you went with some kind of dual-boot, with the boot record on the Vista drive, you may have to edit the boot record. You might need a CD-ROM drive on the computer so you can boot a live operating system, like Ultimate Boot CD, Knoppix, or Ultimpate Boot CD for Windows, but you shouldn't be hosed.

ETA: In reading your account again, it sounds like the hard drive with your Vista system is probably the one that's failing. I wouldn't blame it on OpenSuse. If that drive is completely unreadable, you may have to go to a forensic data recovery service if the data on the drive is important enough to warrant it and you don't have a backup. If the drive is readable but just won't boot, you may be able to back up data files and do a "recovery install" of Vista to get the OS back, but it's probably better to go with a new drive.

[JoeEllison]

If you installed OpenSuse on an extra hard drive, what's the problem? Can't you just remove the extra hard drive you installed it on, and boot from the original Vista drive?

If you went with some kind of dual-boot, with the boot record on the Vista drive, you may have to edit the boot record. You might need a CD-ROM drive on the computer so you can boot a live operating system, like Ultimate Boot CD, Knoppix, or Ultimpate Boot CD for Windows, but you shouldn't be hosed.

ETA: In reading your account again, it sounds like the hard drive with your Vista system is probably the one that's failing. I wouldn't blame it on OpenSuse. If that drive is completely unreadable, you may have to go to a forensic data recovery service if the data on the drive is important enough to warrant it and you don't have a backup. If the drive is readable but just won't boot, you may be able to back up data files and do a "recovery install" of Vista to get the OS back, but it's probably better to go with a new drive.

First off... the drive worked last night. :D

Secondly, I've run a diagnostic on it from BIOS, and all the drives check out fine. I put in a recovery disk in order to do a Windows system restore, which was "successful" but still won't boot. When I attempt to boot from that hard drive, I get a OpenSuse menu asking me if I want to boot up Suse, Windows 1, Windows 2, and something else. I tried disabling the Suse drive in BIOS, and it just won't read the other drive. I am now installing my Vista recovery disk on a third hard drive, and we'll see if that one will boot up.

[Jekyll]

First off... the drive worked last night. :D

Secondly, I've run a diagnostic on it from BIOS, and all the drives check out fine. I put in a recovery disk in order to do a Windows system restore, which was "successful" but still won't boot. When I attempt to boot from that hard drive, I get a OpenSuse menu asking me if I want to boot up Suse, Windows 1, Windows 2, and something else. I tried disabling the Suse drive in BIOS, and it just won't read the other drive. I am now installing my Vista recovery disk on a third hard drive, and we'll see if that one will boot up.

Before you do that, can you see what happens if you select windows 1 or 2?

Edit: Re enable the turned off drive first.

[JoeEllison]

Before you do that, can you see what happens if you select windows 1 or 2?

Edit: Re enable the turned off drive first.

It gave a disk read error.

Here's a weird thing: I installed Vista on a third hard drive, and when I booted up it gave me the choice of booting from the two Vista hard drives, and didn't give the option for the Suse disk at all.

I think it may have something to do with my using the 64-bit version of Suse, with the 32 bit version of Vista? Do you think it is safe to format the other hard drives, since my original one is up and running again? I mean, once I confirm that the hard drive is NOT going to fail?

[grmcdorman]

It wouldn't be related to using 64-bit SUSE. My son has a laptop on which I've installed 64-bit Kubuntu and Windows XP (32-bit); it doesn't have a problem.

Sounds more like SUSE had problems recognizing your Vista partition(s).

To check your hard drive the best route is to find the manufacturer's diagnostic program and run that. One way of doing that is to get the Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html), which contains practically all hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic programs, among other things.

I'd also suggest to use a Live CD (or DVD, if you have a burner and the bandwidth to download) to experiment with Linux for a while. In particular, you can check that it can properly access your Vista partition(s).

[negativ]

It sounds like a GRUB configuration error. Without explicit error messages it's impossible to do much more than guess at your problem. It's extraordinarily unlikely that SuSE (or any software for that matter) actually *caused* a drive to fail.

I'm sorry you're having trouble, but I'm sort of glad you didn't like SuSE. I thought I was the only person who failed to love it.

[JoeEllison]

It sounds like a GRUB configuration error. Without explicit error messages it's impossible to do much more than guess at your problem. It's extraordinarily unlikely that SuSE (or any software for that matter) actually *caused* a drive to fail.

I'm sorry you're having trouble, but I'm sort of glad you didn't like SuSE. I thought I was the only person who failed to love it.

GRUB error 22

WHat's a grub?

[DoubtingStephen]

Grub is a boot loader, it creates the menu you have seen asking you to choose an OS at boot-up time.

With earlier versions of Windows it was not very difficult to rewrite the master boot record to remove grub and restore the default behavior of booting right into Windows. That may have changed with Vista.

This Microsoft page may help:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

[bignickel]

My initial experiments with Linux started with Suse around 10 years ago.

I installed 98, then WinNT 4. Good dual-boot machine. Then, I was going to install Suse, for a nice triple boot.

So, there weren't any real directions per se in the Suse linux I bought from Best Buy, so I booted from the CD. It asked if I wanted a "normal" install or a "custom" install. Well, no real directions with the package, and nothing more on the screen, I just went with "normal".

Evidently, "normal" install meant FORMATTING my C drive. This is an OS that was being sold at a national retail outlet, mind you.

And I had to install 98 and WinNT all over again. I left Suse on a table by the entrance door of the apartment complex for the next sucker... I mean experimenter to try.

Red Hat.... no problems ever, except trying to get that solo Mah Jongg program to the size I wanted.