Grub stage1 file error

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Sun, Oct 05, 2003 at 11:30:15PM -0400, Robert L Cochran wrote:
> 
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong: you go into fdisk, change a partition type to 
> x'83', Linux ext3, write the change to the partition table, and what is 
> the next step?

In changing a partition table?  None.  You are done.

> I've done this several times and I think you have to 
> format the partition. How else can you get your inodes and journalling 
> done?

Changing types on partitions will NOT change anything about
file systems there and 'mount' is not paying _any_ attention
to a partition table.  A file system which was there before
is still present.  During the boot starting sectors of
partitions are recorded so 'mount' will know where to start
looking for a given file system.  You can change partitions
type markers any way you please and this will have a zero
effect on an operation of Linux.  This may confuse _you_ but
this is another story.

As a matter of fact you can erase a partition table on a running
system and it will still function as usual until you will try to
reboot it.  If you saved a partition information and you will
restore later partition boundaries then your file systems will
"magically" reappear.

Grub is a special case.  It is a bootloader.  That means that it
runs before any OS is up and it has to find somehow some files
which are needed to boot.  It seems to be looking at these type
markers to decide which way of searching to apply.  The same
applies to any other bootloader; only methods of "finding"
something may be different.

> Formatting destroys everything on the drive.

Who said anything about formattting?

  Michal