From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1FnAJv-0004sD-S4 for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 04:20:20 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1FnAJu-0004rl-CZ for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 04:20:18 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1FnAJs-0004qv-AT for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 04:20:17 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1FnAJr-0004qm-Qu for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 04:20:15 -0400 Received: from [64.233.182.188] (helo=nf-out-0910.google.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1FnAQy-0000xv-3N for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 04:27:36 -0400 Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id a27so1630479nfc for ; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 01:20:14 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:disposition-notification-to:date:from:user-agent:x-accept-language:mime-version:to:subject:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=KnQKlyLiIRoof9e/adc3dT7mbfnElhwovi80pICZy/3yHmFBVLTIBaEfEfrLz7+YkZcaQ7mzCoyGj8+dSEwHNxjSsEThBBRrocTmgF0mQmUqNiJCDwA/bnKgDAtyWutqn+EQ2DwI3tg9wk3uxzdCJLwO/RRtXSooDn/V+FmXSMs= Received: by 10.49.2.11 with SMTP id e11mr2973427nfi; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 01:20:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?192.168.1.10? ( [62.203.37.71]) by mx.gmail.com with ESMTP id l32sm5121450nfa.2006.06.05.01.20.13; Mon, 05 Jun 2006 01:20:13 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4483E945.8060609@gmail.com> Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 10:20:21 +0200 From: Vladimir Serbinenko User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 (X11/20050804) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The development of GRUB 2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1251; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: MBR management X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:20:18 -0000 Hello. I'm back after long time of inactivity. I would like to expose my idea: Many of commercial OS have some weird conditions on where they are installed (e.g. it must be installed on primary active partiotion, ...) and what we can do is 1st possibility: function that transform primary<-> logical like: logical->primary: hang it simply at MBR inverse: create a extended table and hang it on this table (operation is only possible if there is some place before the partition but it's always the case with partitions transformed from logical) 2nd possibility. Add grub extended partition table (e.g. on last sector of first track) containing "hidden" partitions that can be transformed in primary and inverse Pros: primary partition is on the cylinder boundary (does any OS really depend on this?) and extended partition contains no primary partition within it (is it really important) Cons: "empty" space can be emdommaged by partition tools but we can add this partition support to parted 3rd possibility 1st+2nd I made some proof of concept coding with grub1 (it was some time ago) but one problem is that grub numbers partitions depending on its logical state (so theese operations would change numbering). Possible solutions that I see 1) change partition numbering so that it numbers them in physical order 1a) keep both numbering (e.g. (hd0,0) and (hd0,p0)) 2) partition labels 3) save original partition numbering 4) keep the things like they are and let the scripts handle theese situations 5) Your porposals? Yours, phcoder