[GRLUG] Active Partitions

[Tim Schmidt]

On Dec 4, 2007 3:31 PM, Justin Denick <justin.denick at gmail.com> wrote:
> The MBR is a small program that is executed when a computer starts up
> in order to find the operating system and load it into memory. It also
> contains the partition table and other information needed by the BIOS
> (basic input output system) to access the hard disk drive (HDD).

Sorry.  The MBR isn't a program at all.  It's literally the region of
a partitioned hard disk encompassing the first 512 bytes of that disk,
and may contain any number of useful things (including programs) but a
program it is not.  In other words, the MBR - being a very specific
region of a disk - may contain the partition table for that disk, a
bootloader (or other useful program - usually executed by the BIOS), a
unique disk ID, etc.  See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record

> I have now installed LILO onto the MBR, rather than onto the
> [1]Partition and the machine boots fine.

So after all that, I was right.

--tim