mbr and boot question

[Ben Duncan]

Ohhh .. I get headache just thinking about this one. BE CARFUL !!!

Early versions of Lilo would ALWAYS write to the FIRST (Or lowest 
device numbered) disk
and into the MBR.

Yes you can put different MBR's on DIFFERENT Disk, and I know the the 
Adaptec BIOS I have on this
controller will let you boot from a different disk that ID 0. What I 
do not know, is what happens
after the mbr is loaded from a different disk. I had the problem of 
older version Lilo ALWAYS writing
out the MBR to the IDE removable drive I have (device hda) rather that 
sda, since hda WAS lower than
sda. The version I now have has an lilo entry like such:


disk    = /dev/sda
   bios  = 0x80
disk    = /dev/sdb
   bios  = 0x81
disk    = /dev/sdc
   bios  = 0x82
disk    = /dev/sdd
   bios  = 0x83
boot    = /dev/sda1
read-only

Where the "boot" comand tells WHERE the lilo boot stuff should go.

Tony Alfrey wrote:
> Thanks!
> So my final question is:
> 
> May I put LILO on the MBR of a disk I wish to use as a new boot disk 
> and still keep the original LILO on the boot sectors if I want to later 
> return to my old scheme?
> 
> 
> On Wednesday 02 October 2002 07:05 am,Net Llama! wrote:
> 
>>Yes, your assumption is correct.
>>
>>On Wed, 2 Oct 2002, Tony Alfrey wrote:
>>
>>>Hi!
>>>
>>>Presently, I boot several partitions and several SCSI disks all
>>>from a single disk that uses Boot Magic (a chain loader).  I assume
>>>that Boot Magic resides in the MBR of the boot disk.  I then cut to
>>>windhose or LILO on other partitions and other disks.  My
>>>assumption is that LILO is installed in the boot sectors (not the
>>>MBR) of the "other" partitions/disks.
>>>Is it therefore possible that there is nothing at all in the MBR of
>>>the "other" disks?
>>>(I ask because I want to experiment with an all LILO system
>>>starting with a different disk as the boot disk.)
>>>Thanks in advance.
>>
> 


-- 
Ben Duncan   Phone (601)-355-2574     Fax (601)-355-2573   Cell 
(601)-946-1220
                         Business Network Solutions
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