[ILUG] bootable vfat from linux ?

[Paul Reilly]

Hi,

I'm trying to re-create a Dell vfat utility partition from
within Linux. Normally you install it from the Dell utilities
CD, and it creates a 30MB partition of type 'de' on /dev/sda1
or whatever.

OK, so I copied a good partition map from a working system with sfdisk,
I then re-apply it to a blank machine I want to clone it to. I copy over
the MBR and untar whatever files Dell usually installs. Like so:

on good system:

	sfdisk -d /dev/sda >  disk.out
	dd  if=/dev/sda  of=/sda_446.mbr bs=446 count=1
	tar -cf dell.tar /dell

on clone system:

	sfdisk /dev/sda  <  disk.out
	[reboot]
	mkdosfs /dev/sda1
	dd if=/sda_446.mbr of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1
	mount /dev/sda1 /dell
	tar -xvf dell.tar

But it never works. The cloned system can't find the
Utility partition. I've read about zeroing the first
512 blocks of a new vfat partitions, but that didn't help
much either.

I must be missing something here.
This has to be possible.

Thanks,
Paul