[SOLVED] Syslinux. Installing bootloader.

Question

Hello, I have an Acer Aspire M3-581TG, which comes with 20Gb mSSD and 500Gb HDD. For some reason mSSD can't be bootable, so if I try to install any operating system with automatic installation on this drive, it creates MBR boot sector on my HDD. I wonder, how do I install bootloader manually and which partiotion should I mark as boot if my partitioning looks like this
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007a51a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 976771071 488384512 83 Linux
for the HDD with /home directory and
Disk /dev/sdb: 20.0 GB, 20014718976 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2433 cylinders, total 39091248 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a6c4c
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 2000895 999424 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb2 2000896 39090175 18544640 83 Linux
for mSSD with swap and /
If I create separate /boot partiotion on my HDD
syslinux-install_update -i -a -m
works fine, but I want the system to be fully on mSSD.
P.S. Why did Ubuntu mark my /home partition as bootable?
Last edited by IamPr377y (2013-09-12 09:16:00)

Answer 1

mostlyharmles wrote:MBR convention holds that the first partition of the first hard drive should have the MBR on it, and to make life easier it's a good idea to have the bootloader there too. This is just how BIOS works and there is no way around that as far as I know. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Master_Boot_Record
    From what I understand from your post you are trying to install everything on the mSSD.  As indicated by /dev/sda your HDD is your first hard drive. You will have to put the bootloader on it and point it to the operating system on the mSSD.
No, the MBR is not part of a partition, it's on the first sector of the drive.
And there's no reason you can't have the bootloader on the second (etc.) partition, or on sdb (etc.). As far as the drive goes, what matters is that your BIOS can be configured to boot from it.
Last edited by alphaniner (2013-09-11 20:02:47)