Re: making disk bootable

[roman@songdog.eskimo.com (Bill Roman)]

Daniel Stringfield wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 22 Nov 1996, Ricardo Kleemann wrote:
> > 
> > How do I go about inserting an mbr if my current setup isn't using LILO 
> > (and thus hasn't made the hd bootable)?
> 
> the MBR is "master boot record".  this is the actual software that brings
> up the system.  The MBR in this case is initialized when you install LILO.
> Its not something you "install" then add LILO.  It *IS* LILO.

A minor clarification: booting from hard disk is a two-stage process.
First the system BIOS reads the MBR and begins executing it.  The usual
DOS MBR code reads the partition table (also contained in the MBR)
and finds the primary partition which is flagged as bootable, reads the
first sector of that partition (the partition's boot block) and begins
executing it.  This code is responsible for loading and starting the
operating system in a system-dependent way.

LILO's boot loader code can be installed either on the MBR or on a Linux
partition's boot sector.  In the former case, Daniel Stringfield is
exactly correct -- LILO is completely sufficient.  In the latter, the MBR
must be initialized with the some code which can behave like the DOS MBR;
the Linux partition must be flagged as bootable if LILO is to be loaded.

-- 
Bill Roman  (roman@songdog.eskimo.com / roman@songdog.uucp)   running linux


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