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Installing Red Hat* Enterprise Linux 4*
Intel® Server Board S5000PAL
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Advanced Boot Loader Configuration
Now that you have chosen which boot loader to install, you can also determine where you want the
boot loader to be installed. You may install the boot loader in one of two places:
• 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 presents a boot prompt. You can then boot Red Hat
Enterprise 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 takes control first. You can then
configure that boot loader to start GRUB, which then boots Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Figure 4-13. Boot Loader Installation
Tip: If you have a RAID card, be aware that some BIOSes do not support booting from the RAID card.
In cases such as these, the boot loader should not be installed on the MBR of the RAID array. Rather,
the boot loader should be installed on the MBR of the same drive as the /boot/ partition was
created.
If your system only uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you should choose the MBR.
1) Click the Change Drive Order button if you would like to rearrange the drive order or if your BIOS
does not return the correct drive order. Changing the drive order may be useful if you have multiple
SCSI adapters, or both SCSI and IDE adapters, and you want to boot from the SCSI device.