[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       grub-devel
Subject:    workaround for MS Windows' insanity (ignores partition types / hidden flag since 2018)
From:       Marcel Partap <mpartap () gmx ! net>
Date:       2019-11-13 23:13:48
Message-ID: 3c882104-2e32-41a2-ee51-71c91a773d37 () gmx ! net
[Download RAW message or body]

Dear grub devs,
as we have just last week released a hundred of our debian-based \
https://github.com/fsfw-dresden/usb-live-linux/ sticks .. and at the moment are \
rolling out a version for primary schools, I have stumbled over the pure stupidity \
that is Windows 10's handling of partitioned usb drives. As seems abundantly \
documented, windows changed its behaviour sometime last year and now blatantly \
ignores the hidden flag, displaying partitions regardless of type and prominently \
offering to format non-windows filesystems. I was somewhat shocked at this ridiculous \
demeanour.. After an hour of investigating this I found the very sole workaround was \
to set the partition type to 0 - empty/none. This was the only way to windows not \
show and offer to format partitions beyond the exchange FAT partition. Rejoicing, on \
restart I found out that grub would not proceed booting from a partition of type \
"empty". Now semantically, that is totally correct. However, in order to provide us \
with a coping mechanism for such live linux use scenarios, I propose to add a flag \
that overrides this code:
> static inline int
> grub_msdos_partition_is_empty (int type)
> {
> return (type == GRUB_PC_PARTITION_TYPE_NONE);
> }
to allow booting from partitions of type 0 empty/none.
This should cause less confusion to the hundreds of young students atm wondering \
about "what the hell is formatting" ..

Best Regards,
#marcel
_______________________________________________
Grub-devel mailing list
Grub-devel@gnu.org
https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel


[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]