On Mon, 2008-03-17 at 12:14 -0700, walt wrote: > Paul Albrecht wrote: > > Hi, > > > > A question: Does grub have to write to the boot device to boot a system? > > If not, is there an option to inhibit grub from writing to the boot > > device? > > Well, by definition a machine boots from the boot device, but the boot > device doesn't need to be a hard disk if you want to avoid writing to > it. I have a USB stick and a floppy disk with grub installed that I > keep around for booting emergencies. > > If I knew your motivation for asking perhaps I could give you a better > answer. >
More specifically, I'm booting linux with grub and have setup a separate boot partition. After I boot the system, I md5sum'ed the boot device and compared it with one saved from a prior boot. They're always different. I think grub is writing the boot sector because I md5sum'ed all the files in my boot partition and they remain unchanged over a boot. Any idea why grub would be writing to the boot sector or is there some other explanation? > Something must load grub into memory and start it running. That's what > the first sector on the boot device does after the BIOS loads it. What > else did you have in mind that could do the same job? > > > > _______________________________________________ > Bug-grub mailing list > Bug-grub@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-grub -- Paul Albrecht _______________________________________________ Bug-grub mailing list Bug-grub@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-grub
