Why is my system booting?

[paul47]

This is probably an unusual question, but I need to understand the process,
so I can control and modify it in later steps. I have read through the grub
manual and not gotten an answer. I wouldn't know what to search for here.

My system is a Sony laptop, running grub 0.97. The BIOS is set to boot off
CD first, then internal hard drive, and that's all (NOT a USB drive). I have
PCBSD installed on the internal hard drive, and openSuse 11.3 installed on a
usb hard drive. My aim is to boot Suse (with nothing in the CD), and that is
exactly what it is doing - but I don't see how it can possibly do it!

When I installed Suse on the USB hard drive, it apparently loaded stage 1 in
the internal hard drive MBR (I guess I picked the wrong option); thus I can
no longer boot PCBSD, which doesn't bother me. The internal drive MBR looks
like this:

000010 1a 06 b9 e6 01 f3 a4 e9 00 8a 80 fa 80 72 0b 8a  >.............r..<
000020 36 75 04 80 c6 80 38 f2 72 02 b2 80 bb 00 0e be  >6u....8.r.......<
000030 5e 07 e8 8c 00 66 81 3e 00 0e 45 46 49 20 03 02  >^....f.>..EFI ..<
000040 81 01 00 80 c2 4a 00 00 00 08 fa 90 90 f6 c2 80  >.....J..........<
000050 75 02 b2 80 ea 59 7c 00 00 31 c0 8e d8 8e d0 bc  >u....Y|..1......<
000060 00 20 fb a0 40 7c 3c ff 74 02 88 c2 52 be 81 7d  >. ..@|<.t...R..}<
000070 e8 36 01 f6 c2 80 74 56 b4 41 bb aa 55 cd 13 5a  >.6....tV.A..U..Z<
000080 52 72 4b 81 fb 55 aa 75 45 a0 41 7c 84 c0 78 3e  >RrK..U.uE.A|..x><
000090 75 05 83 e1 01 74 37 66 8b 4c 10 be 05 7c c6 44  >u....t7f.L...|.D<
0000a0 ff 01 66 8b 1e 44 7c c7 04 10 00 c7 44 02 01 00  >..f..D|.....D...<
0000b0 66 89 5c 08 c7 44 06 00 70 66 31 c0 89 44 04 66  >f.\..D..pf1..D.f<
0000c0 89 44 0c b4 42 cd 13 72 05 bb 00 70 eb 7d b4 08  >.D..B..r...p.}..<
0000d0 cd 13 73 0a f6 c2 80 0f 84 e8 00 e9 8d 00 be 05  >..s.............<
0000e0 7c c6 44 ff 00 66 31 c0 88 f0 40 66 89 44 04 31  >|address@hidden<
0000f0 d2 88 ca c1 e2 02 88 e8 88 f4 40 89 44 08 31 c0  >address@hidden<
000100 88 d0 c0 e8 02 66 89 04 66 a1 44 7c 66 31 d2 66  >.....f..f.D|f1.f<
000110 f7 34 88 54 0a 66 31 d2 66 f7 74 04 88 54 0b 89  >.4.T.f1.f.t..T..<
000120 44 0c 3b 44 08 7d 3c 8a 54 0d c0 e2 06 8a 4c 0a  >D.;D.}<.T.....L.<
000130 fe c1 08 d1 8a 6c 0c 5a 8a 74 0b bb 00 70 8e c3  >.....l.Z.t...p..<
000140 31 db b8 01 02 cd 13 72 2a 8c c3 8e 06 48 7c 60  >1......r*....H|`<
000150 1e b9 00 01 8e db 31 f6 31 ff fc f3 a5 1f 61 ff  >......1.1.....a.<
000160 26 42 7c be 87 7d e8 40 00 eb 0e be 8c 7d e8 38  >&B|address@hidden<
000170 00 eb 06 be 96 7d e8 30 00 be 9b 7d e8 2a 00 eb  >.....}.0...}.*..<
000180 fe 47 52 55 42 20 00 47 65 6f 6d 00 48 61 72 64  >.GRUB .Geom.Hard<
000190 20 44 69 73 6b 00 52 65 61 64 00 20 45 72 72 6f  > Disk.Read. Erro<
0001a0 72 00 bb 01 00 b4 0e cd 10 ac 3c 00 75 f4 c3 00  >r.........<.u...<
0001b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 fe  >................<
0001c0 ff ff 83 fe ff ff 22 00 00 00 7f 00 00 00 80 fe  >......".........<
0001d0 ff ff 83 fe ff ff a2 00 00 00 ff 6f 17 00 00 fe  >...........o....<
0001e0 ff ff 83 fe ff ff a2 70 17 00 ff ff 3f 00 00 00  >.......p....?...<
0001f0 01 00 ee fe ff ff 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00 55 aa  >..............U.<

(Dang, no code tag here - hope you're reading this with a fixed width font!)

The last thing in the partition table, that "ee" type, is a GUID indicator
(there are a couple sectors after this one with the rest of the internal
hard drive partition info) that PCBSD was using. Also there are evidently
two active partitions, which looks strange, but since PCBSD uses GUID the
partition table here must be irrelevant.

Anyway, I am trying to see how grub manages to get out to the USB hard drive
(where stage 2 and Suse is) from here. I don't think there is a stage 1.5 as
the following sectors have just GUID stuff. What am I missing? Any help
would be very much appreciated; I have been stumped on this one for a while.
-- 
View this message in context: 
http://old.nabble.com/Why-is-my-system-booting--tp29973202p29973202.html
Sent from the Grub - Bugs mailing list archive at Nabble.com.