Just curious

[mascarasnake]

hey Doug -

GDB-B&W-YDL3.0.1 wrote:
> In an effort to understand what is happening when yaboot starts my 
> computer, I have looked at the partition map of the HD (80 Gb Maxtor 
> IDE)  and found the following.  hda1-8 are all less than 1 Mb and take 
> up the first 2 sectors of the HD.  

These are the drivers that are necessary for that disk to access The Mac 
OS(s). If you only had OS X on that drive, you would only have the first 
partition (Apple_partition_map) and a very small free space. The rest 
are the drivers for OS 9.

Next there is a 128 Mb free space.

This should be hda9. After this partition, you should have placed your 
'Apple_Bootstrap' partition (making the partition that yaboot should 
reside hda10)

> hda10 is an hfs+ partition and is 31011 Mb in size.  This is my OSX 
> partition.  Then another 128 Mb free space.  hda12 is also an hfs+
> partition and is 5997 Mb in size.  This is my OS9 partition.  hda9 is 
> the yaboot hfs partition and is 1 Mb in size.  

This is where I get confused. From what you said above, right after 
parts 1-8, there is a free 128MB part. I can't see how that free space 
(which should be hda9) could also be your bootstrap partition (which 
should be and hfs part).

If I may suggest, copy, paste and post the actual pdisk output so we can 
see what exactly is going on. You also might want to take a look at:
<http://www.sharplabs.com:8668/space/Installing+YDL/BootX%2C+Yaboot+and+the+OF>
  and a couple of links at the bottom that can get you the really nitty 
gritty (Booting Mac OS X link and the penguinppc yaboot how to).

hda11 is my 1000 Mb linux
> swap partition and hda13 is my 10000 Mb ext3 YDL partition.  This leaves 
> 29901 Mb of free space at the end of the drive. 

<snipped your yaboot.conf file>

> 
> My question is, shouldn't the yaboot partition be at the very beginning 
> of the drive?  

yaboot needs to come after the drivers (the first partition after 
'Apple_Patches' and before any other bootable partition.

In other words, what makes the computer go all the way
> down to the hda9 partiton to start?  

Check out those links. I give a simplistic version on the FAQ, you can 
get the real technical reason at the "Booting Mac OS X" link. I'd still 
like to see your actual pdisk output, tho.

I feel this is part of the reason
> why I can't boot out of OS9 once I boot into it, but don't understand 
> why this doesn't happen when I boot into YDL or OSX.  Sorry if this is a 
> newbie type question, but I'm used to PC drives where the MBR resides at 
> the beginning of the drive.
> 
> Just a message from Doug...


g'luck

-- 
     It's what you make it man
     Takes time
     A little bit
     A little bit more

             -The Minutemen

dontdrill@earthlink.net