[NTLUG:Discuss] GRUB boot process

[David Stanaway]

Ooops.

I see you already did :P

Move along now...

David Stanaway wrote:
> You might find this useful:
> 
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
> 
> Robert Citek wrote:
>> On 10/27/2007 04:59 PM, Jerome Haltom wrote:
>>> Stage 1 goes on the MBR. Stage 1.5 goes in the boot sector. Stage 1.5
>>> has a file system module embedded into it which is capable of reading
>>> from /boot. Stage 2 is loaded from /boot by Stage 1.5. Stage 2 loads
>>> menu.lst, has other file system drivers, and can finally display a
>>> prompt and boot the system
>> I'm still not quite clear about this.  If I understand you correctly:
>>
>> - stage 1 is in the first 512 of the drive (e.g. /dev/hda)
>> - stage 1.5 is in the first 512 bytes of the partition (e.g. /dev/hda1)
>> - stage 2 is in the /boot/grub directory (e.g. on /dev/hda1/ mounted at /)
>>
>> I was under the impression that any boot loading code had to be smaller 
>> than 446 bytes[1].  Yet, stage1 is larger at 512 bytes, which doesn't 
>> leave any room for a partition table:
>>
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root    512 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/stage1
>>
>> Also, I was under the impression that the boot sector was also limited 
>> to 512 bytes, which wouldn't be enough room for any of these stage1_5 files:
>>
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7776 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7504 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/fat_stage1_5
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   8320 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/jfs_stage1_5
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   7008 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/minix_stage1_5
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   9216 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/reiserfs_stage1_5
>> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   9288 2007-09-25 13:42 /boot/grub/xfs_stage1_5
>>
>> What am I missing?  Are my understanding of the MBR and boot sector 
>> incorrect?  Did I misunderstand what you wrote?  Or something else?
>>
>> [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
>>
>> Regards,
>> - Robert
>>
>>
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