[syslinux] PXELINUX based kickstart query (probably OT)

[H. Peter Anvin]

Coe, Colin C. (Unix Engineer) wrote:
> Hey all
> 
> I tried 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=2 seek=255 count=1' and while a
> network boot was forced, all the partition info on /dev/sda was lost.  

The partition info is not lost, but the OS or partitioning software may 
not recognize the partitioning table without the boot signature (which 
is bad design, but somewhat hard to avoid since there isn't a decent 
magic number anywhere in the DOS partition table.)

> I tried 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1' and after POST the
> workstation just sits a blank screen when it should have either gone to
> a PXE screen or GRUB.  On the bright side, the partition ifo was intact
> so fixing it was easy.
> 
> So I just need a combination of these to outcomes  :)
> 
> Any ideas?

Nope, you're screwed.

	-hpa