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bootloader question about GRUB


From: Jomelle Wong
Subject: bootloader question about GRUB
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2012 00:46:48 +0800

I'm not really sure where to ask this. I reckon it doesn't really belong in devel
or bug reports, so I'll just do it here.

I've been browsing the stage1.s of what I think is the grub legacy looking
for inspiration, though I'm not quite good enough to look through everything.

How is it that GRUB doesn't conflict with an existing filesystem given that it
loads things off fixed sectors(for the stage1 at least)? I've looked at the stage2
directory and I don't think that will ever fit on just a single sector.

Does GRUB try to guess what the existing filesystem is? I don't see any hints
on the config file about the filesystem it is on.

On installation on a partition bootsector, does it read the MBR partition table
and patch stuff(the long stage2_sector, for example)?

What if the filesystem doesn't have reserved spaces(reserved sectors for FAT
would be set to 1, and ext would have no reserved blocks)? Where would the
rest of GRUB go? Does it patch those fields? But I don't see any hints on the
partition filesystem on the config. Or does GRUB literally store itself on fixed
sectors(outside partitions)? In that case, I go back to my conflict question.
That is, what if every partition has consumed the HDD to the brim. Does it
adjust the partition table?


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