Re: bootrecord on extended partitiion

[Arand Nash]

Michael Evans wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 7:21 PM, Arand Nash <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I've been using grub-legacy to boot grub via the bootrecord of an extended
> > partition, since having a multiboot setup where all other primary
> > partitions, including the mbr, are dedicated otherwise and I need the
> > bootrecord of grub on a "primary" partition to be able to use it with the
> > somewhat weird setup I've got (one button boots the mbr, another button
> > boots the grub-associated bootrecord)
> >
> > In grub legacy it was a simple matter of specifying to install to (hd0,3)
> > (or sda4). But in the new grub2 this no longer works and just gives
> > "grub-setup: error: no such partition" or "Invalid device `/dev/sda4'".
> > I've tried grub-setup with --force but no luck.
> > Is there any way to use the grub tools to do this, and if not, are there any
> > way to do it in a more manual fashion and create the bootrecord image
> > correctly and then simply dd the image onto sda4?
> >
> >
> > This is the fdisk output, goal is to have the "mbr" (br) on sda4 boot grub
> > files from sda6
> >
> > Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
> > 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> > Disk identifier: 0x00000080
> >
> >    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> > /dev/sda1               1        2550    20482843+  c7  Syrinx
> > /dev/sda2            2551        6375    30720000    7  HPFS/NTFS
> > /dev/sda3            6375       10836    35837098    7  HPFS/NTFS
> > /dev/sda4   *       10837       38913   225528502+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
> > /dev/sda5           10837       35726   199928893+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> > /dev/sda6           35727       38427    21695751   83  Linux
> > /dev/sda7           38428       38913     3903763+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Help-grub mailing list
> > address@hidden
> > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-grub
>
> Have you tried using (hd0,6) and installing to the area at the start
> of your linux filesystem?

Problem is I need it on a primary (Boot-button can only boot primaries).
(c.f.
http://digiwanderlust.blogspot.com/2008/04/dual-boot-boot-linux-using-dell-media.html)

I did actually find A solution, but it's wonderfully kludge-tastic:
I simply wrote it to a logical partition and dd:ed over the 446b
bootrecord to the extended partition, and lo and behold, it works.

Well, it's ok for the time being, but it would be quite nice if there
was a more "proper" method to do it..