Chapter 3. Installing Red Hat Linux

53

The master boot record (MBR)

This is the recommended place to install a boot loader, unless the MBR already starts another

operating system loader, such as System Commander. The MBR is a special area on your hard

drive that is automatically loaded by your computer's BIOS, and is the earliest point at which the

boot loader can take control of the boot process. If you install it in the MBR, when your machine

boots, GRUB (or LILO) will present a boot prompt. You can then boot Red Hat Linux or any

other operating system that you have configured the boot loader to boot.

The first sector of your boot partition

This is recommended if you are already using another boot loader on your system. In this case,

your other boot loader will take control first. You can then configure that boot loader to start

GRUB (or LILO), which will then boot Red Hat Linux.

Figure 3 16. Boot Loader Installation

If your system will use only Red Hat Linux, you should choose the MBR. For systems with Windows

95/98, you should also install the boot loader to the MBR so that it can boot both operating systems.

Click the Change Drive Order button if you would like to rearrange the drive order. Changing the

drive order may be useful if you have multiple SCSI adapters or both SCSI and IDE adapters and want

to boot from the SCSI device.

The Force LBA32 (not normally required) option allows you to exceed the 1024 cylinder limit for

the

/boot

partition. If you have a system which supports the LBA32 extension for booting operating

systems above the 1024 cylinder limit, and you want to place your

/boot

partition above cylinder

1024, you should select this option.

If you wish to add default options to the boot command, enter them into the Kernel parameters field.

Any options you enter will be passed to the Linux kernel every time it boots.

3.20.2. Rescue Mode

If you need to use rescue mode, there are several options available to you.