RFE: Grub should provide option to swap partition order

[Ulf Zibis]

Hi all,

as I'm not subscribed to this list, please *CC me* while answering, e.g. by "Reply 
all".

Maybe you have noticed the discussion on address@hidden :
Can Grub start Windows XP from "other" partition

Now I've found a possibility to have 2 WinXP installations, both originally installed on "C:", 
alternatively running on one disk.
As I still was unable to boot a Windows by Grub from a logical partition (only NTLDR can do that, 
but in my case resolves incompatible drive letter), I copied my old Windows XP partition from sda1 
to sda2. A fresh new Windows XP installation was installed to sda1.

First I tried this:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#DOS_002fWindows

It works for to boot the Windows installation on sda1, but it dosn't work for the one on sda2 (~ 10 
seconds after WinXP boot screen I got a blue-screen).

So the only thing I found out, that works, is to swap the order of those partitions in the partition 
table (print from sfdisk):
         Device Boot Start     End   #cyls    #blocks   Id  System
      /dev/sda1   *      0+   3038    3039-  24410736    7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
      /dev/sda2      16418   19456    3039   24410767+   7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
      /dev/sda3       3039    5390    2352   18892440   83  Linux
      ....
exchange/toggle with:
      /dev/sda1      16418   19456    3039   24410767+   7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
      /dev/sda2   *      0+   3038    3039-  24410736    7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
      /dev/sda3       3039    5390    2352   18892440   83  Linux
      ....

Unfortunately grub can't do that until now, so hereby I suggest an additional 
option e.g.:

      parttool (hd0,1) swap-order (hd0,2)

The option should include swapping the volume-IDs in the menu entries in grub.cfg as well, so they 
would again match correctly.

Thanks,

-Ulf