From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from dell-paw-3.cambridge.redhat.com ([195.224.55.237] helo=passion.cambridge.redhat.com) by pentafluge.infradead.org with esmtp (Exim 3.22 #1 (Red Hat Linux)) id 16mzL9-0002RP-00 for ; Mon, 18 Mar 2002 15:46:27 +0000 From: David Woodhouse In-Reply-To: References: To: Ilguiz Latypov Cc: Linux MTD mailing list Subject: Re: DOC2000 + GRUB/LILO booting problems Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 15:57:49 +0000 Message-ID: <23171.1016467069@redhat.com> Sender: linux-mtd-admin@lists.infradead.org Errors-To: linux-mtd-admin@lists.infradead.org List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Linux MTD discussion mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: ilatypov@superbt.com said: > I agree it might be impossible for the kernel to mount a partition > formatted within NFTL layer if NFTL data structures in the beginning > of the flash chip are overwritten. But I don't know the exact details > of the NFTL layer myself. It would be impossible. The two erase blocks at the beginning of the NFTL are required. > The GRUB bootloader needs around 96K at minimum. NFTL layer can be > set up after the bootloader only. It seems the start of the NFTL > layer will be detected automatically by the kernel. In my > understanding, the kernel will simply search for a signature in every > erase unit of the chip to find the beginning of NFTL layer. Correct. The best way to do this is to use the DOS dformat program to reserve that 96KiB, then put Grub in afterwards. We should probably work out how to make the .EXB file format that DFORMAT uses, so we can actually use DFORMAT to program Grub too. -- dwmw2