John,

I've been using SuSE/openSUSE for over a decade without ever having seen a 
boot menu that uses function keys for selection. This suggests you've been 
using some boot loader other than one from openSUSE, one which was probably 
installed either in the MBR or in the partition the floppy disk recognized as 
C:, and which you disturbed or obliterated using the SYS command.

The partitioner the SuSE installer uses may have been used to create 
partition(s) for its use using different logical geometry than that used by 
the installed DOS version(s) and/or the FD boot floppy. Likely the geometry 
isn't a real problem that needs fixing, but recovering the bootloader you had 
been using may be the first thing that needs doing.

If I had it here what I would try is setting the system up to boot into the 
SuSE Grub bootloader using the recovery option from the SuSE installation 
media, and from that choose to boot either WinDOS or FreeDOS or openSUSE as 
desired. Before that though I would try moving the boot flag from C: to the 
Linux partition if the latter is a primary to see if Linux will boot. If it 
does, it probably already has menu entry(s) for booting DOS and/or Win98.

It might be easier than recovering Linux bootloader status via repair to use 
a newer openSUSE installation media to upgrade Linux. If any Linux root or 
boot partition is a primary, I would install Grub to that primary, if it 
isn't there already. This option (booting from Linux on a primary without 
disturbing WinDOS MBR code) allows use of standard PC compatible MBR boot 
code, and won't corrupt the ability to boot Linux after any event like your 
application of SYS C:. All that would be required in a repeat of such event 
would be to restore the boot flag from the C: partition back to the Linux 
primary.

cf. http://fm.no-ip.com/PC/install-doz-after.html
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/

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