[syslinux] COM32 Advice

[H. Peter Anvin]

Murali krishnan Ganapathy wrote:
> hmm.... I always thought officially you are only allowed to use 
> the 0th sector on track 0 (MBR). I have heard of (windows I think) 
> using upto 4 sectors, but that may be in the partition in which 
> it is installed. So I thought, sectors 6-9 should be safe. If 
> I can be reasonably assured that Linux (i.e. LILO), and Windows
> dont use more than the first 4 sectors on track 0, I will be happy.
> 
> Since I am doing the partitioning, I can ensure that track 0 is 
> "unpartitioned space", so officially only the MBR lives there.
> 

There is nothing "official" about this space, period.  Technically
*noone* is allowed to use it, but there are plenty of things -- mostly
boot managers and the like, but also some antivirus (and virus!)
software -- that does seem to use it.

	-hpa