[vox-tech] bootable partition question

[Stephen M. Helms]

Quoting Peter Jay Salzman <p@dirac.org>:

> 
> my understanding is that a bootable partition is used when the MBR
> doesn't contain a boot strap program -- BIOS loads in a bootstrapper
> from the beginning of a bootable partition.
> 
> if this is right, what use does a bootable partition serve if lilo
> resides in the MBR (as with the majority of linux systems)?
> 
> if that isn't correct, what does the bootable flag mean on a
> partition?

This is a good question Pete!  I know that you can set other partitions as the
boot partition.  I believe what happens is that there is a pointer in the MBR to
the bootable partion so that you can have more than one bootable partion on a
disk and change which one is the current bootable one.

Stephen