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

[Andreas Dilger <adilger@turbolabs.com>]

On Jan 14, 2002  14:36 +0300, Oleg Drokin wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2002 at 02:16:30PM +0300, Hans Reiser wrote:
> > So what solution should we use, zeroing or fixing msdos to not try 
> > something reiserfs can find, or both or what?
> 
> 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.

'Re: 2.4.15-pre1: "bogus" message with reiserfs root and other weirdness'
dated Nov 21, 2001 for patch to clean up reiserfs boot messages and order.

'Re: [reiserfs-list] Re: Basic reiserfs question' dated Sep 7, 2001 for
patch which (among other things) zaps non-reiserfs data from the disk
when mkreiserfs is run (also referenced in a subsequent posting
'Re: [reiserfs-list] mkreiserfs /dev/hdb' dated Oct 1, 2001).

There was a patch submitted within the past week to clean up the FAT
messages when "silent" is passed.  In any case, that is mostly irrelevant
if reiserfs is moved up in the probe order.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2resize/
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/