[syslinux] Creating a bootable partition on a USB disk with syslinux

Gilles Espinasse g.esp at free.fr
Tue Sep 11 00:59:00 PDT 2007


Selon Andreas Jellinghaus <aj at leogic.com>:

> Am Montag, 10. September 2007 schrieb H. Peter Anvin:
> > Ian Brown wrote:
> > > My question is: shouldn't syslinux /dev/sdb1 create a bootable partition
> > > ? Should I use fdisk for it ? (like the "a" command of fdisk,
> > > toggle a bootable flag)
> >
> > You need to install an MBR and mark the partition active.
>
> btw: how to do that?
> all I know is
>  - use mbr file from lilo
>  - use dd to write it to /dev/sda
>  - use some fdisk to mark the partition active
>
> using dd is somehow awksome since it looks like this will overwrite the
> partition table. but if the mbr small enough (220 bytes or something)
>
> debian/ubuntu has also a package "mbr" with a programm install-mbr.
> but: this program adds some hot keys so people can choose which partition
> to boot during boot. this can be a security issue in some setups.
> (or an annoyance as it adds a few seconds to the boot time.)
>
we used the same mbr package on ipcop and I have not seen the 'hot keys' change
and it does not disturb us.

> oops, checked ubuntu lilo package, no longer contains an mbr.
> does anyone know a source of an open source mbr without fancy features?
>
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~neilt/mbr


Gilles




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