[syslinux] MBR ## SYSLINUX ## Linux (before first partition)

[Frederic Pasteleurs]

> Larry Riedel wrote:
>> On a boot drive on a PC, I would like to boot Linux
>> by having it at the beginning of the disk, right
>> after the MBR and SYSLINUX, _before_ the first
>> partition, and _not_ in a filesystem.  Essentially I
>> want something like booting a floppy with a kernel
>> built using "make fdimage", but with a hard disk
>> instead of a floppy disk.  The first partition would
>> probably start at the second cylinder; for a drive
>> with 255*63*512 bytes/cyl, that should be enough
>> room for a kernel and a little initrd/initramfs.
>>
>> Can I do this easily using SYSLINUX, and if so, is
>> it something fairly straightforward to setup (does
>> not require much deviation from typical usage)?
>
> You'd have to massively hack it, so no, it's not easy; you'd be better
> off writing the code from scratch probably.
>
> You're not explaining why you want to do this, there might be an easier
>  way to accomplish what you want to do.

Furthermore, the ability to boot a linux kernel straight off a raw floppy
is deprecated from the 2.6 series.