Re: [reiserfs-list] Boot failure: msdos pushes in front of reiserfs

Chris Mason
2002-01-14T20:23:56Z

On Monday, January 14, 2002 10:42:42 AM -0700 Andreas Dilger
<adilger@turbolabs.com> wrote:

>> We can use both:
>> destroy MSDOS superblock (if any) at mkreiserfs (or don't touch 1st
>> block of the device if there is no msdos superblock).
>> And link reiserfs code into the kernel earlier than msdos code.
>
> Hmm, I could have sworn I submitted patches already which did both of these
> things. In general, it is perfectly safe to zero the bootsector of a
> partition when you mkfs it (mke2fs has been doing this for a long time).
> If you mkfs your boot partition (and zap the bootblock) you would have to
> run LILO on it anyways after they install a new kernel, because the
> location of the kernel would change.

Hmmm mke2fs seems to always zero out the first 1024, except on sparcs (when
ZAP_BOOT_BLOCK not defined). I thought alphas stored the partition table on
the first block of the first partition as well, and that we didn't want to
zero it then.

-chris