Re: NT + XFS, newbie

[Susumu Takuwa]

>>>>> On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 09:42:53 -0300
        Mauricio writes:

M>     Things are more clear now. As I understand, I don't need to have stage
M> 1_5 in a floppy, because I can put stage 2 in a defined sector, but  I
M> should use stage 1_5 in a hard disk so stage 2 can be found in a filesystem.
M> Is that right?

That is right.

M> -> If I want to install GRUB in a harddisk, how should I provide the correct
M> stage 1_5 to setup? Do I need to create a floppy that has the same
M> filesystem of my harddisk and use the correct stage 1_5 in the floppy?

Probably, ``setup'' command choose stage 1_5 that fit
filesystem of /boot. You don't have to choose the correct
one. ``Probably'' means that I have not read source code. 

And, grub disk don't depend harddisk. That is, when you boot
system from grub disk, BIOS load stage 1 in grub disk to RAM
and stage 1 load stage 2 in grub disk to RAM. Once stage 2
are loaded, stage 2 find Linux kernel on your filesystem
that grub support.

Well, stage 2 know filesystems as well as stage 1_5. So,
You don't need to create grub disk that include stage 1_5.

M> -> Is it possible to install GRUB without putting files in any of my
M> installed systems, i.e., could I create a, say, 250K partition in the
M> beggining of the harddisk and install all GRUB files to access all kinds of
M> filesystem there (and also the files to configure GRUB and GRUB menu)? How
M> can I do that?

You can do that. For example, you have harddisk, which have
following partitions.

----------------------------------------------
| MBR | hda1(Windows C: FAT) | hda2(Linux)   |
----------------------------------------------

1st, you make directory C:\boot\grub on Windows filesystem.
And you copy stage* and menu.lst that are in /boot/grub of
Linux partition or ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/grub/grub-0.91-i386-pc.tar.gz.

2nd, you execute grub shell in Linux or grub disk. And you type
the following command.

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

3rd, you can boot Linux that have no boot loader in
themselves. When you want edit menu.lst you may edit one in
Windows partition, ie) C:\boot\grub\menu.lst, by Windows
editor :-)

Windows partition must be FAT because grub don't support
NTFS as you know.


        Susumu Takuwa