Partitioning and boot flag

[p10]

Hi all, 

I just managed to get Funtoo up and running, but something about the installation guide is bugging me, mainly the "Prepare Hard Disk" section.

I partitioned my SSD using the BIOS/MBR method and the suggested scheme: /boot, swap and root in this order.

I used fdisk and did NOT make any partition bootable (the guide doesn't mention anything about it) and followed the rest of the guide step by step.
As soon as I rebooted I was greeted with 'Operation System not found' written on a black screen.

I then put my sysrescueCD back in, ran fdisk again, made the /boot partition bootable and voila', Funtoo booted with no problem.

I am probably missing something. If I remember correctly the boot flag is not strictly needed by GRUB: is my BIOS bugged?


I'm using a Dell xps 13 9333

 

Edited January 3, 2018 by p10

[znavko]

Installing a Bootloader section has those instructions.

[dhudson]

I think you already solved that but its explained well here:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Disks

p.s. you are correct it is not in the Funtoo install instructions.

edit. well as I just did a new Funtoo install yesterday I did not remember setting the first partition bootable.

and just checked my main pc its not set either,. so it must have to do with grub as jhan eluded to.

 

[palica]

The boot flag is from ancient times, where you would indicate an MBR partition record as bootable, so you could indicate where the boot loader resided.

On modern OS'es this is widely unused, as the MBR consists of a minimal stage loader which bootstraps either into its own partition or jumps to another area on the disk where the boot loader code is kept. (An MBR can contain either executable code or the boot partition table among other things.)

As an example, GRUB is written into the MBR and boots whatever partition you choose.

Did you follow the instructions and issued:

Quote

grub-install --target=i386-pc --no-floppy /dev/sda

Paste the exact command that you used to install grub on your disk, please.

I don't have bootable set on any of my disks in multiple devices and all boot fine with grub.