[Nottingham] /boot below 2GB (was: Linux not recognized/bootable after installation)

[Paul Sladen]

On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, Martin Waryniak wrote:

Hi Martin!

> Toshiba Satelite 3000, 390Mb RAM, P3 850Mhz. [...]

  Mb  == Megabits
  MB  == MegaBytes

> I installed linux into the partition hda6, with hda5 as swap drive [...]
> Should I create a separate /boot partition?

To do with the history and uselessness of the PC BIOS;  LILO (the Linux
bootloader) can only load the kernel from the hard disk if it it can find it
within the first 2GB of the disk (is now this 8GB?).

The simplest way to ensure this is the case, is to create a *tiny* 10MB-15MB
`/boot' partition right at the front of the disk.  The kernel and second-
stage bootloader can then be loaded off this and and jump to the big
`/' root partition at the end of the disk.

Somebody who's done this more recently will probably give you a better
answer.  (Anyone know if can you just get PartitionMagic to lop 20MB off the
front of hda1?, or is it best to use `Loadlin' if you really can't resize
the first partition?)  If the limit is now 8GB, just cut 15MB off the front
of `D:' and pop a small `/boot' in there, either has a logical partition or
`hda3'/`hda4'.

You should be able to boot by Floppy or CD or Loadlin in the meantime
(Windows ME needs a patch to allow you to press Shift-F5 on startup and get
/Real DOS/ though).

Hope that helps,

	-Paul
-- 
Nottingham, GB

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(The following is for reference only, you probably _don't_ want to do this
and it just makes the problem look harder than it is... :)

The last time I had dual-boot Intel machine I did some evil twiddling of the
partition table so that something like:

  hda1    `C:'
  hda2    Extended Partition
  hda3    Linux `/boot'
  hda4    Linux Swap

And then (manual tinkering required) the actual on-disk location of the
partitions looked like:

    0MB -  15MB   Linux `/boot'  (hda3)
   15MB - 128MB   Linux swap     (hda4)
  128MB - xxxGB   `C:' (first partition in the partition table)
  xxxGB - yyyGB   Extended partition (containing `D:' and Linux `/' root)

If PartitionMagic will do this for you, *great*, if not, please don't do it
as I don't want to get the blame!  :)   

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