Non partitioned disk and grub shell

[DervishD]

    Hi all :)

    I have no partitions on my disks, I use the full device (/dev/hda
and /dev/hdb) as my filesystem under Linux with no problems. The MBR
of each disk have the IBM partition label signature (that 0x55AA) and
Linux identifies them as IBM empty partition tables.

    Isolinux and LILO have no problems with this, but grub seems to
have. When I run 'grub' I have:

    grub> find (hd0,0)<TAB>
    Error 21: Selected disk does not exist.

    The same command under an identical system, same hardware, even
hard disks but the disks have one partition, works without problems,
so I think that is the empty partition table which is causing
problems.

    Since my setup is quite uncommon I don't expect GRUB to change
for supporting it ;)) but I would like to know a solution. Right now
I cannot empty the disks in order to create partitions on them and
restore contents afterwards, so my only resource is tweaking the
partition table. Could I create a fake partition starting in sector
0 and ending in the last sector so the layout matches the current
layout or that won't work? I mean, the disk is currently:

0                  X
·------------------·
| MBR | Filesystem |
·------------------·

    well, the MBR is currently the first sector of the ext3
filesystem. What I want is to add a partition starting at 0 and
ending at sector 'X' in MBR. Will it work?

    Thanks a lot in advance :)

    Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado

-- 
Linux Registered User 88736
http://www.dervishd.net & http://www.pleyades.net/
It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to...