[syslinux] COM32 Advice

[Michael_E_Brown at Dell.com]

Just figured I'd send it as an FYI. I spent the last three weeks digging up
this info, and 
	1) it doesn't seem to be well documented
	2) everybody confuses MBR with the partition boot record.

It is a really big pain to rewrite SYS.COM under linux without adequate
docs.
--
Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: H. Peter Anvin [mailto:hpa at zytor.com]
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2003 12:02 PM
To: Brown, Michael E
Cc: gmurali at cs.uchicago.edu; syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: Re: [syslinux] COM32 Advice


Michael_E_Brown at Dell.com wrote:
> Windows uses several sectors in the _partition_ for booting. Windows only
> uses sector 0 of the Disk (the MBR), and does not use any other sectors.
> Other boot managers and copy protection software (the stuff that comes
with
> TurboTax this year uses track 0, evil...)

Yes, anyone who bought a copy-protected program to *keep track of their 
tax records* really deserve what they get.  "No, I'm sorry, IRS, I can't 
send you another copy of my tax return for two years ago... you see, I 
bought a new computer last year..."

> For FAT32, there are 32 sectors that are reserved by the FS, and I've come
> up with the following handy chart for which sectors are used where:

Technically, it can be any number for either FAT12/16 or FAT32, although 
you're right; FAT32 has "official" uses, in particular for the 
superblock and the backup.

Either way, this has nothing to do with Track 0, which contains the MBR.

	-hpa