[GRLUG] Active Partitions

[Justin Denick]

On Dec 4, 2007 7:00 PM, Tim Schmidt <timschmidt at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

No. You were right about the MBR not being a program,
a tangent that was applied only by your fortitude to correct
my mistake of describing the solution to what the actual problem
was. In conclusion, we all now know that the MBR is the physical area
in a container, disk, volume, drive... etc. That's wonderful.

However, it is important that we note one thing: The problem booting was not
related to my description of the MBR, but rather that this particular board
requires that there exist an active partition on the disk you are attemting to
boot an OS from.

>
>
> --tim
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