Re: writing to a partition

"Mumia W." <paduille.4061.mumia.w+nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Allan Adler writes:
For (2), I think the solution is to mount /dev/hda1 from the Linux
partition and to execute, as root,
cat wtw > /dev/hda1
where wtw is a file containing the solution to (1) (it stands for
"what to write").

Actually, I don't need /dev/hda1 to be mounted to do that.

If you're not an experienced Linux user or programmer, don't even
consider it.

The machine is expendable, as is everything on it.

If you intend to do "cat wtw > /dev/hda1," you should first know how to
write or configure an x86 bootsector to perform some operations. Get out
your assembly language handbook.

I have a few assembly language books and also the manual for the particular
CPU in this machine. However, none of these books talk about "how to write
or configure an x86 bootsector to perform some operations". Can you suggest
some references that do talk about that?

A smarter option would be to copy a boot floppy to a mounted /dev/hda1.
You'd still have to configure the bootscripts on /dev/hda1 after the copy.

Copying a boot floppy might lead to a successful boot from /dev/hda1 but
I might learn less from something that works than from something that doesn't
work, unless the something that works is very small and simple, e.g.
something I write myself, or just a few bytes that someone else wrote.

I don't know what is meant by configuring the bootscripts on /dev/hda1.

I just did a google search for "configure x86 boot sector" and ran
across
http://mbrbm.sourceforge.net
which looks interesting. For one thing, the page says that mbrbm is an
operating system independent boot manager without configuration and that
it doesn't need a working (booting) operating system partition.

So, maybe I should try to understand how this mbrbm works.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
.

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