[syslinux] Custom MBR

[Jeffrey Hutzelman]

--On Friday, December 12, 2008 01:11:23 PM -0800 YYZ <yyz01 at yahoo.com> 
wrote:

> and they don’t rely on the active flag in MBR at all

... unless the bootloader is not in the MBR, in which case they rely on an 
MBR to find and load the bootloader, which it does by loading it from the 
boot sector of the partition whose active flag is set.

> The catch is that
> whenever you start your system, the control should somehow get
> transferred to the boot manager wherever it resides (unused sectors of
> track0, a dedicated boot partition, etc.).

And that happens - the first-stage bootloader either _is_ the MBR, or is 
located in the boot sector of some other partition, and is located by the 
MBR in the traditional fashion.


> This is what I’m asking for
> – I would like to install syslinux on any partition of my choice and
> would like to boot into syslinux

You can have that.  Just set the active flag on the partition where you 
installed syslinux.  That's what it's for.

> regardless of which partition is active.

Why?  What is wrong with how it works today?
What are you trying to do that can't be done with a standard MBR?
What are you using the active flag for, other than to tell the MBR where to 
find a bootloader?

-- Jeff