Last week I installed Windows 7 RC (which still works these days, btw) on my brother’s computer so he could practice Autodesk Inventor at home. Since Windows stubbornly still denies the existence of any other OS, it consequently wipes the MBR and installs its own boot loader. Bottom line, we need to reinstall the GRUB boot loader.
There are several ways to do that, but since my brother uses openSUSE, I will use the openSUSE install dvd:
- Boot from the install dvd
- Select “Rescue system”. This will give you a console. (I also tried the automatic repair option, but that somehow did not work..)
- log in with root. no password is asked.
From here on, it is not openSUSE specific anymore:
- Run “grub”. It starts scanning your disks and after some time you should get a
grub>prompt. - (Optional) Find the partition where grub is installed:
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1 - Set grub’s root partition (example: first harddisk, first partition):
grub> root (hd0,0) - Execute grub installation into MBR:
grub> setup (hd0) - If you would have wanted to install into a specific partition instead of the MBR, simply specify the partition instead:
grub> setup (hd0,0)
You can find all this info and more in the grub manual.