Strange booting problem

[Chris Murphy]

On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 4:37 PM, jd1008 <jd1008 at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, let me ask a simple question.
> Technically (I mean programatically), how difficult is it to
> fix both BIOS and fdisk so that unless a partition is marked
> as bootable, the partition table will not contain the boot signature
> and BIOS will still accept the partitioning scheme, but
> move on to the next drive in the boot order?

The problem isn't with fdisk. If there's a problem it's that this BIOS
instance isn't smart enough to qualify the MBR it received, fail it
for $REASONS, and then ask for the MBR from the next device in
sequence.

Answers in no particular order, sorta tongue in cheek, being the
deviloper's advocate (pun intended):

- Learn assembly, get hired to a company that OEMs firmware, fix and
advocate pushing it to users. (i.e. I think this is hard to do and
management would probably say no it's not worth the money resources
for this.)

- We have already done exactly this, it's called UEFI.

- We have already done exactly this, it's called coreboot, maybe your
system can use that? (Actually, I've never used coreboot, I don't know
that it will qualify an MBR and do a fallback as described.)

-- 
Chris Murphy