[ILUG] Wandering partition bootable flag

[Frank Duignan]

Ah, a clue.  When I installed Linux on my laptop I deleted a partition which
was equal in size to my RAM - the prepared partition no doubt.  Is this an
answer?


On 04/09/07, ollie at eillo.org <ollie at eillo.org> wrote:
>
>
> Installing GRUB to the MBR sounds good but apparently Vista
> freaks out if you do this.
>
> The link for the install guide is pretty good but doesn't
> really provide anything new since the problem I have is not mentioned.
> Interestingly im not the only one who cant shrink the
> NTFS partition properly though.
>
> What I don't understand is that if its Vista messing with
> the bootable flag then everyone should have that problem.
> But ive found nothing about it on the net so maybe it's
> something Dell put in there.
>
> Here we go: (http://cheers.de/LatC400-linux.html)
>
> "When suspending to disk, the contents of RAM is
> written to the prepared partition. Then the "bootable"
> flag probably set on one of your partitions is cleared
> and instead set on the s2d-partition. Dell now expects
> your boot loader to boot from the partition which is marked
> as bootable. LILO for example doesn't give a sh.. about that.
> So if you're using a good boot loader, you'll need to add a
> further entry telling the boot loader to boot from your
> s2d-partition. Contents of RAM will be restored, the boot
> flags, too."
>
>
> So when I suspend, the suspend partition is set to
> bootable and after recovering from suspend the bootable
> flag is kindly returned to the Vista partition.
>
> Ill have to check that when I get home.
>
> Cheers,
>             Oliver.
>
>
> On Tue, 04 Sep 2007 11:17:35 +0100, Michael Watterson <watty at eircom.net>
> wrote:
> > Or use dd to save the Linux boot sector as a file on the NT partition as
> > say bootlin.par
> > add a line in Boot.ini
> >
> > [boot loader]
> > timeout=30
> > default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
> > [operating systems]
> > multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
> > Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
> > C:\bootlin.par="My favorite Linux Distro"
> >
> >
> > You can extend this to any number of OS, even creating bootrecords on
> > normally unbootable MBR of logical drives in a physical partition, Or
> > even different versions of linux installed on same partition (save
> > partition record as a file between each extra install).
> >
> >
> > Also works for OS2, MSDOS, Win9x etc.
> >
> > maybe someone can explain to me why it works for any arbitary logical
> > drive?
> >
> > I've an online article I did for Dell in 1999 when they were doing RH6.0
> > shipping. I've forgotten where.
> >
> > Belgarath wrote:
> >> install grub in Master Boot Record ?
> >>
> >> On Tuesday 04 September 2007 10:37:51 ollie at eillo.org wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hello everyone,
> >>>                          I have a couple of questions about Vista and
> > dual
> >>> booting. I installed Arch Linux alongside Vista on my new Dell Vostro
> >>> laptop. Everything went fine; Vista can be started from grub.
> >>>
> >>> However every time I restart the laptop the bootable flag seems to
> have
> >>> wandered from the GRUB partition back to the Vista partition?!?
> >>>
> >>> If I wan to boot Linux again I have to stick in a rescue disk, start
> >>> fdisk and set the GRUB partition as bootable again.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Has anyone come across this? Is there a fix?
> >>>
> >>> I know I can boot through the windows bootloader but I prefer to go
> >>> straight to GRUB.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Also slightly OT -
> >>> http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial133.html describes a
> >>> handy way to shrink the NTFS partition to make room for Linux.
> > Originally
> >>> Vista had all 160 GB. The above method allowed me to shrink that to
> > about
> >>> 100 GB but refuses to allow me to shrink it any more.
> >>>
> >>> I'm using about 25 GB of the space available; I have disabled the
> > page
> >>> file, emptied the recycle bin, run that clean up program and
> > defragmented
> >>> the partition.
> >>>
> >>> Any suggestions?
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>>         Oliver.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Mike
> >
> >
> >
>
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