Re: switching root fs '/' to boot from RAID1 with grub

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Bill Davidsen wrote:
> 
> I don't understand your point, unless there's a Linux bootloader in the 
> BIOS it will boot whatever 512 bytes are in sector 0. So if that's crap 
> it doesn't matter what it would do if it was valid, some other bytes 
> came off the drive instead. Maybe Windows, since there seems to be an 
> option in Windows to check the boot sector on boot and rewrite it if it 
> isn't the WinXP one.  One of my offspring has that problem, dual boot 
> system, every time he boots Windows he has to boot from rescue and 
> reinstall grub.
> 
> I think he could install grub in the partition, make that the active 
> partition, and the boot would work, but he tried and only type FAT or 
> VFAT seem to boot, active or not.
> 

The Grub-promoted practice of stuffing the Linux bootloader in the MBR 
is a bad idea, but that's not the issue here.

The issue here is that the bootloader itself is capable of making the 
decision to reject a corrupt image and boot the next device.  The Linux 
kernel, unfortunately, doesn't have a sane way to do that.

	-hpa