[syslinux] Problem using syslinux with hard drive partition

[H. Peter Anvin]

Spiro Philopoulos wrote:
> I have been succesful in using syslinux to boot from a hard drive, by dd'ing 
> a Linux (LRP) image onto the drive and then running syslinux (i.e. dd 
> if=the_image of=/dev/hda followed by a syslinux /dev/hda), however I'm having 
> problems getting it to work from a partition on the hardrive. I'm trying to 
> use syslinux on a small 100MB FAT16 partition (same commands as before, just 
> replacing /dev/hda with /dev/hda1), but on boot I get the error: "Error 
> booting operating system". The hard drive is a 40GB drive with hda1 being, as 
> mentioned before, a 100MB FAT16	 partition, and the rest includes a couple of 
> ext2 partitions. If possible, I would like to find a method to boot from a 
> partition while still being able to dd new images onto the partition. Any 
> info/help would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks.

You need an MBR on the hard disk, and the appropriate partition set active.

	-hpa