>> The boot sector is really only part of one sector. That doesn't seem 
>> like enough room to write code to find NTLDR or whatever the second 
>> step of Linux boot code is (GRUB I assume, or LILO). Especially given 
>> the wide range of partition types and RAID types a boot partition is 
>> allowed to be on in Linux.
>>
>> How does it fit enough of the file system code into the boot mechanism 
>> to find the files it needs? Is there something special, such that 
>> (say) copying the file to a different place on the disk would keep 
>> things from booting?
> 
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Bootstrap-tricks.html
> http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Images.html
> 
> I know from experience that moving stuff around on the boot partition 
> can break GRUB.

So the location of the real meat is hard-coded into the MBR. Neat...

-- 
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