If not install GRUB on MBR...

[qufuping]

hi, guys

 

I'm a newbie on GRUB internals, I've got something annoying.

I've googled the net, but can't find any relevant links, so forgive my rudeness.

 

My question is:

If I don't install grub on MBR, where does e2fs_stage1_5 embed in?

 

The following are the details:

 

case 1

-------

#fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 128 heads, 32 sectors, 921 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4096 * 512 bytes

 

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *         1       800   1638384   83  Linux
/dev/sda2           801       921    247808   82  Linux swap

 

so, if i want to install GRUB to MBR,

         

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,0)
grub> root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)

 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are embedded. succeeded
 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2

 /boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
 Done.
From here, we can see the 16 sectors are located behind the MBR(512B)

case 2

-----

#fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
/dev/sda2              14         359     2779245   83  Linux
/dev/sda3             360         391      257040   82  Linux swap

(/dev/sda1 is the boot partition)

 

grub> find /grub/stage1
 (hd0,0)

 

grub> root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

 

grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  15 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+15 p (hd0,0)/grub/stage2 /grub/grub .conf"... succeeded
Done

 

It's almost the same as case 1

 

case 3

-------

the disk partition is the same as case 2

what if we want to install MBR on /dev/sda1 ?

 

grub> setup (hd0,0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
 Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0,0) /grub/stage2 p /grub/grub.conf"... succ
 eeded
Done.

what does the "... failed (this is not fatal)" mean? I'm confused.

Is the exfs_stage1_5 embeded? where? What is the correct operation I can use?

 

Any suggestions/links will help, thanks. :)