Dual boot Fedora <--> Windows 8

[Chris Murphy]

On Nov 22, 2013, at 1:45 PM, Joe Zeff <joe at zeff.us> wrote:

> On 11/22/2013 12:00 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
>> Because you're using BIOS Boot, it's possible grub-install put core.img
>> (formerly stage2) right at the start of that partition, in which case by
>> merely changing the boot flag (the active bit), you could choose which
>> OS is loaded. But it's not guaranteed that grub-install will put
>> core.img right at the start of that partition.
> 
> Actually, the boot flag isn't important because only Microsoft pays any attention to it.

That's untrue. syslinux/extlinux both use jump code in LBA 0 that likewise jumps to the start LBA for the partition with the active bit set. There's also an old freebsd boot manager that let's the user choose which partition to boot from, in effect a faux (impermanent) setting of the active bit.

I could be mistaken but I believe LILO works the same way. So it may be that GRUB is the only thing that doesn't pay attention to it.

Chris Murphy