Re: i386-pc target and no block lists

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, Aug 14, 2015 at 02:29:23PM +0200, Olaf Hering wrote:
> Last night I finally got around to update my grub1 chainloader to grub2.
> During install of the bootloader I ran into this issue:
> 
> grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be installed 
> in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and 
> their use is discouraged..
> 
> I think everyone just gets around this message by always passing
> --do-it-anyway to grub2-install. At least the distro I'm using does
> this.
> 
> But since the system I just reinstalled is still fresh I wonder what
> needs to be done to avoid the --do-it-anyway option? Right now I can not
> imagine how the partition/filesystem layout has to look like.
> 
> Olaf
> 
> 
> esprimo:~ #  parted -s /dev/disk/by-id/wwn-0x50014ee2590ff8f9 unit s print
> odel: ATA WDC WD6400BEVT-2 (scsi)
> Disk /dev/sda: 1250263728s
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
> Partition Table: msdos
> 
> Number  Start       End          Size         Type      File system     Flags
>  1      2048s       4196351s     4194304s     primary   ext3            boot, 
> type=83
>  2      4196352s    6293503s     2097152s     primary   ext2            
> type=83
>  3      6293504s    23070719s    16777216s    primary   linux-swap(v1)  
> type=82
>  4      23070720s   1250263727s  1227193008s  extended                  lba, 
> type=0f
>  5      23072768s   111153151s   88080384s    logical   ext4            
> type=83
>  6      111155200s  199235583s   88080384s    logical   fat32           
> type=83
>  7      199237632s  287318015s   88080384s    logical   ext4            
> type=83
>  8      287320064s  375400447s   88080384s    logical   ext3            
> type=83
>  9      375402496s  463482879s   88080384s    logical   ext4            
> type=83
> 10      463484928s  1250263727s  786778800s   logical   xfs             
> type=83
> 
> 
> esprimo:~ # /usr/lib64/grub2-chainloader/sbin/grub-install --verbose 
> /dev/disk/by-id/wwn-0x50014ee2590ff8f9-part1

So instead of installing grub to a partition, install it to the disk,
which will place it after the partition table in the almost 2048 sectors
before the first partition.

Certainly Debian by default installs grub to the MBR (aka the disk),
not to the partition.  I would be surprised if any other distribution
does it differently.

-- 
Len Sorensen