On Fri, 3 Nov 2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> This shows another piece of my ignorance.
"Ignorance" is a bit harsh... to use your own sig, I think "a lack of
information" might be the better term. :-)
> If you load LILO in the boot record of the partition, does that mean that
> the MBR is left as the M$ MBR?
It will be left untouched. If you had a standard master boot record before,
you will still have one afterwards. Said standard MBR might come from
anywhere: Microsoft, IBM, Linux, space aliens, whatever. The idea is, any
other installer can overwrite it with another standard MBR, and you will still
have the same function.
> In other words, does it only boot to the partition marked active?
Yes. This is by design. It may be a stupid design, but it is still the
standard behavior. When you start doing strange things to a standard (like
LILO does), you shouldn't be surprised at lossage down the road.
> Or, can you still multi-boot?
Yes. :-) If you want more flexibility, such as being able to choose your
OS at boot time, or the ability to boot from something other then a primary
partition on the first hard disk, then you should install a more sophisticated
boot loader (such as LILO, GRUB, BootMagic, or Partition Commander) into one
of your primary partitions, and set that partition active.
> I always avoided this, because I couldn't find out what that option means.
It is actually pretty straight forward, just a bit esoteric.
When the BIOS boots the system from disk, it loads the Master Boot Record
(MBR) from the first bootable disk it finds. On a hard disk, the MBR checks
the partition table to find the active primary partition, and loads the boot
record from that partition. That partition boot record can then do whatever
it likes.
In most cases, LILO gets installed such that it overwrites the MBR
(installed to /dev/hda or similar). This puts your OS-specific boot loader
(LILO) into a space that is supposed to be used for a generic purpose (loading
the boot record of the active primary partition).
If, instead, you install LILO on the boot record of your boot partition
(installed to /dev/hda1 or similar; Red Hat calls this the "first sector"),
then your MBR remains the generic loader it was intended to be, and you can
boot Linux (LILO) like any other standard OS. LILO can also function as your
boot menu program, if you want. This also has the benefit that if your Linux
partition becomes unavailable for whatever reason, you can simply change the
active primary partition to boot some other OS.
Hope this helps,
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Net Technologies, Inc. <http://www.ntisys.com>
Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839
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