Greg Wooledge (HE12025-12-28): > 1) Leave a bit of space unpartitioned at the beginning of the disk. > It doesn't have to be large; a megabyte or so will suffice. > This is where the "Master Boot Record" (MBR) will be written.
That is not absolutely accurate. The MBR is only the first sector. Possibly even the first 446 octets of the first sector, the rest being the partition table. But GRUB does manage to not fit filesystem-parsing code in these 446 octets, it needs a stage 1 accessed through hard-coded sector numbers. That can be done in a file on the install filesystem, crossing finger hoping nothing moves that file. Or that can be done in reserved sectors of the install filesystem, if the filesystem supports it. Or that ca be done in the gap between the MBR and the first partition. The last option is more robust and is what you describe. Regards, -- Nicolas George
