On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:38:15 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> If GRUB's boot sector actually loaded the boot sector off the active
>>> partition, just like ever other boot sector written in the history of
>>> hard drives on IBM computers and their clones, you could remotely
>>> switch back and forth by using the same procedure that's worked since
>>> day 0 on the IBM AT. Sadly, the Linux developers want to be the only
>>> OS that can be booted, so they didn't bother to follow the standard.
>>> ;-)
>> 
>> I had thought GRUB on my system here was set up with the MBR, but I was
>> in fact mistaken - it's in the root partition instead.
>> 
>> Jim
> 
> Its actually a bit complicated. Windows will, if it can't find, or finds
> a damaged Boot.ini simply boot the active partition, otherwise it acts
> like Grub, and basically gives a menu, which can "default" to a specific
> partition. As I understand it, there is no direct way, short of hand
> editing, to tell it which one you want "active" as the default, so you
> **need** the "boot from the active partition" behavior. lol GRUB.. Well,
> either it or LILO, or maybe both, can be set to be either in the MBR or
> in the root. I think, either way, they will look at the root to try to
> find the menu options to display. Anyone try to delete the menu and see
> what happens? It might default to booting the "active" if it can't find
> the menu. So, the only real difference would be the redirect to the
> linux partition, in the case where its installed there, instead of in
> the MBR, presuming it does boot the active in such a case. Its kind of a
> toss up then if you think the "Windows" MBR or the Linux MBR behavior
> makes more sense.

Interesting, now I'm going to have to do some playing with Grub (in a VM) 
when I have some time. :-)

Jim

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