[vox-tech] bootable partition question

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Edwin P. Groot (groot@mail.uni-mainz.de):

> My question is, if there is only 400-odd bytes in the MBR for a
> bootstrap, and LILO is in it, how does it know which partition the Linux
> boot program is on?

446 bytes obviously isn't enough room for anything with significant
intelligence, so only the _first-stage loader_ of lilo goes there (if
you install it there).  It knows the physical disk location of the
second-stage loader and System.map file (because you wrote that
information when you ran "/sbin/lilo", the "map installer").

> Does it read which partition in the MBR partition
> table (the last 100-odd bytes in the MBR) has the active flag?

lilo pays no attention to "active" flags.

Sector zero consists of:

446 bytes: program area
 64 bytes: four partition table entries of 16 bytes each
  2 bytes: Unused by OSes of interest.  (MS-Windows NT Disk 
           Administrator writes "disk signatures" or some such rot, there.)

-- 
Cheers,                                     The Viking's Reminder:
Rick Moen                                   Pillage first, _then_ burn.
rick@linuxmafia.com