GRUB/LILO: the location of the boot partition

[GeronimoS]

Hello:

I somehow recalled a rule re the location of the boot partitions with LILO being required to be in the first part of the drive (1024 cylinders, it seems) and I found it indeed in an old doc:

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Boot Partition:

Your boot partition ought to be a primary partition, not a logical partition. This will ease recovery in case of disaster, but it is not technically necessary. It must be of type 0x83 "Linux native". If you are using lilo, your boot partition must be contained within the first 1024 cylinders of the drive. (Typically, the boot partition need only contain the kernel image.)
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Is this still valid in GRUB, esp in Fedora 10?

Thanks.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by GeronimoS

Is this still valid in GRUB, esp in Fedora 10?

No. GRUB supports LBA and the boot partition can be located anywhere. It also does not have to be a primary partition.

[GeronimoS]

Thanks ....

[GeronimoS]

Unfortunately, the information here doesn't seem to support your point (pls see the end):

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E.1.9.1. BIOS-Related Limitations Impacting GRUB and LILO

GRUB and LILO are subject to some limitations imposed by the BIOS in most x86-based computers. Specifically, most BIOSes cannot access more than two hard drives, and they cannot access any data stored beyond cylinder 1023 of any drive. Note that some recent BIOSes do not have these limitations, but this is by no means universal.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...ARTITIONS-LILO
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[stoat]

Originally Posted by GeronimoS

Unfortunately, the information here doesn't seem to support your point (pls see the end):

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E.1.9.1. BIOS-Related Limitations Impacting GRUB and LILO

GRUB and LILO are subject to some limitations imposed by the BIOS in most x86-based computers. Specifically, most BIOSes cannot access more than two hard drives, and they cannot access any data stored beyond cylinder 1023 of any drive. Note that some recent BIOSes do not have these limitations, but this is by no means universal.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...ARTITIONS-LILO

Nevermind then. Now I don't whether to believe that ancient Red Hat 9 Installation Guide or my lying eyes...





That very same extended partition now holds Fedora 9 and Fedora 10. The lowest cylinder number used by any ext3 partition in that partition layout is 6,345.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         608     4883728+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2             609        1245     5116702+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3            1246        6344    40957717+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb4            6345        9964    29077650    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5            6345        8078    13928292   83  Linux
/dev/sdb6            8079        8231     1228941   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb7            8232        9964    13920291   83  Linux

You do what you think is right. After all, maybe your computer is also ancient and its BIOS doesn't support LBA. You didn't say. But if it is that old (c. 1994), good luck getting Fedora 10 to run on it.

[GeronimoS]

That being GRUB, in your case?

In mine: Dell Precision 530 1.6GHz, 256M RAM, Matrox video card, 7-year-old system
and of course I'm facing probs ...