On 6 Jun 2001, Fran�ois Pons wrote:
> > > >Is there any way to tell DrakX's auto-install mode to install LILO onto
> > > >/dev/hda1 instead of /dev/hda ? I've looked through the code and the
> > > >nearest option I can find seems to be
> > > >$o -> {bootloader}{crushMbr}
> > > >which, if set to 1, causes LILO to install onto /dev/hda but if set to 0
> > > >causes LILO to "intelligently" decide whether to install onto the MBR or
> > > >the partition.
> > > >How about the following patch:
> > > > <snip>
> > > >This adds an extra option
> > > >$o -> {bootloader}{preserveMbr}
> > > >which, if set to 1, will force LILO to leave the MBR intact. This
> > > >auto-install option must obviously be used with care because if the MBR is
> > > >not valid to start with then the resulting system will not boot.
> That why crushMbr is used, as avoiding mbr install is not normal and is meaning
> a mbr signature is unknown to DrakX, so what are you using to boot linux in such
> case, and can you send us the mbr of your disk with :
> dd if=/dev/hda of=/tmp/mbr count=1 bs=512
> because actually, it could means we expect linux unable to boot on the system as
> DrakX doesn't known anything about the installed mbr.
You can install lilo to /dev/hda1 (or other partition) instead of /dev/hda
and then a 'standard' DOS MBR will happily boot lilo if the lilo partition
is marked active. (Tried and tested). At the moment, DrakX will always
overwrite a DOS MBR.
You might also want to leave the MBR intact if you were auto-installing a
dual-boot machine and wanted to use the pre-existing boot loader as the
"top-level" boot loader: e.g. if you wanted Linux to appear as an option
on NT's boot menu by adding an entry to boot.ini. (Yes, I know that you'd
have to add some code manually to the postInstall to write the correct
entry into boot.ini).
Michael
