[syslinux] chainboot Windows on second drive

Aeron Draxar aeron at draxar.com
Tue Jun 17 11:00:08 PDT 2008


> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > Aeron Draxar wrote:
> >>
> >> I still need some help to install 3.70-pre17. I tried to install from
> >> Ubuntu and I had the same issue than with Fedora: I've lost all my
> >> partitions. I may have done something wrong.
> >> I untar the archive, make, make extbootinstaller, then cat
> >> core/extlinux.bss > /dev/sda. Reboot and crak, no more partitions.
> >> How do install extlinux from this pre17 archive?
> >>
> > 
> > Ah, yes, that would be very bad (you just wiped out your partition 
> > table, and possibly your first partition metadata.)
> > 
> > Instead, mount the partition and run the extlinux installer.  Assuming 
> > you want extlinux installed in /boot/extlinux on the device:
> > 
> >     mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
> >     syslinux-3.70-preXX/extlinux/extlinux -i /mnt/boot/extlinux
> >     cp -f syslinux-3.70-preXX/com32/*/*.c32 /mnt/boot/extlinux
> >     umount /mnt
> > 
> 
> Actually, even better (new in 3.70):
> 
> 	cd syslinux-3.70-preXX
> 	mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
> 	make extbootinstall INSTALLROOT=/mnt EXTLINUXDIR=/boot/extlinux
> 	./extlinux/extlinux -i /mnt/boot/extlinux
> 	umount /mnt
> 
> 	-hpa

Ok, this was done with no error.

Now, the last stage (writting the MBR) crashes the partition table.
If I 'sudo cat ./core/extlinux.bss > /dev/sda' I get a permission error
(note that the system is actually running on sda).
If I 'sudo dd if=./core/extlinux.bss of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1', the
mbr is written but running gparted immediatly shows that the partition
table is screwed.
If I restore grub's mbr with 'sudo dd if=/boot/grub/grub.mbr of=/dev/sda
bs=512 count=1', grub's MBR is restored and the partitions too.

What did I do wrong? Is core/extlinux.bss the right MBR? If I try
mbr/mbr.bin, it doesn't boot (mb it's for removable medias?)




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