Firstly, if there is a better place to ask this, please let me know. My brother has a machine running openSUSE 10.2 (no other OS installed), and I have been tasked with sorting out GRUB. Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure out how from reading the manual, searching the web or even experimenting in desperation... There are currently two hard drives, hdb (via nForce2 IDE) and sda (via SiI 3112). At present, the system boots from hdb (ie the BIOS loads GRUB stage 1 from hdb's MBR). I am posting because hdb needs replacing as it is reporting bad sectors, and also another drive (hdc) needs adding. First question: how do I make the system boot from sda, without adversely affecting the installed OS? Second question: can I make it unaffected by addition/removal of IDE drives? If so, how, and if not, what must I do before and/or after such changes to keep GRUB working? Some specific details: # grub --version grub (GNU GRUB 0.97) # cat /boot/grub/device.map (hd0) /dev/hdb (hd1) /dev/sda # cat /boot/grub/menu.lst # Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Wed Jun 6 21:18:21 BST 2007 default 0 timeout 8 gfxmenu (hd1,1)/boot/message ##YaST - activate title openSUSE 10.2 - 2.6.18.8-0.3 root (hd1,1) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.8-0.3-default root=/dev/sda2 vga=0x31a resume=/dev/sda1 splash=silent showopts initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.8-0.3-default title Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.2 - 2.6.18.8-0.3 root (hd1,1) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18.8-0.3-default root=/dev/sda2 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.18.8-0.3-default # fdisk -l /dev/hdb; fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/hdb: 122.9 GB, 122942324736 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14946 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hdb1 1 14946 120053713+ fd Linux raid autodetect Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda2 * 263 1307 8393962+ 83 Linux /dev/sda3 1308 16252 120045712+ fd Linux raid autodetect /dev/sda4 16253 38913 182024482+ 83 Linux # cat /etc/fstab /dev/sda1 swap swap defaults 0 0 /dev/sda2 / ext3 acl,user_xattr 1 1 [...] /dev/md0 /storage/doc ext3 defaults 1 2 /dev/sda4 /storage/mpd1 ext3 defaults 1 2 # cat /proc/mdstat Personalities : [raid1] md0 : active raid1 sda3[0] 120045632 blocks [2/1] [U_] unused devices: <none> (hdb1 was part of md0, but seems to have been removed without intervention...) Thanks for reading, Alex

"Alex Fraser" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message news:ss-dnWEL8tUp1JzaRVnytAA@eclipse.net.uk... [snip] > First question: how do I make the system boot from sda, without adversely > affecting the installed OS? > > Second question: can I make it unaffected by addition/removal of IDE > drives? If so, how, and if not, what must I do before and/or after such > changes to keep GRUB working? I eventually got it to work. As I was already suspected when I posted, I needed to make GRUB think the drives were how they would be after changing things over. So I started by adding another suitable entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst, and then in grub: device (hd0) /dev/sda root (hd0,1) setup (hd0) Finally, I rebooted and changed the boot order in the BIOS. Alex