Re: Boot sector for ext2

[Grégoire Sutre]

On 05/21/2011 09:31 AM, Martin Rosenau wrote:

> Background: In a multi-OS-environment it is sometimes not possible
> installing GRUB on the MBR (Windows Vista has problems then!)
> Installing GRUB on an ext2 partition (instead of on the MBR) often requires
> "block lists" which often do not work.
>
> I wrote a boot sector that is capable to search a file on the ext2 partition
> by file name (not by inode or block number etc...) and load it. Because the
> entire code is quite small it fits into the boot sector and "block lists"
> are not required.

I find this very interesting.  The two alternatives that exist currently
(or, at least, that I know of), namely (a) installing in the MBR (+ the
following sectors), or (b) using block-lists, have well-known shortcomings.

With your solution, one could simply write the boot sector in an ext2
partition's boot record, and put GRUB files in the ext2 filesystem.
Whatever is in the MBR would then simply chainload the ext2 partition.
Is this correct?

Grégoire