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Bug#235019: debian-installer: the installer could help extracting the bootsector



Package: debian-installer
Version: N/A; reported 2004-02-27
Severity: wishlist

One common multi-boot configuration is to use windows' bootloader to start
linux. Windows' bootloader just needs the first linux' or grub's bootsector
(512 octets) as a file (I suspect this may also be the case for other
bootloaders).

Extracting this bootsector to a file using "dd" needs just a few commands,
but dangerous commands with wizard-parameters. See:
  <http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+NT-Loader-5.html>

I think the installer could help a bit to do this, through a new menu item:
"Copy the bootsector to a file". This item could be for instance automatically
triggered after the "grub-step" if and only if the user did NOT choose an MBR.
Ideally, mounting a windows VFAT partition (or even NTFS, depending on the
kernel) should also be easy from the installer.




-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux fcat 2.4.21-5-686 #1 Sun Aug 24 15:25:33 EST 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.ISO-8859-1, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.ISO-8859-1




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