So I downloaded and installed Ubuntu (Hoare) on the laptop. As usual, I always put the swap partition on the innermost track. That means the first partition.
On the first boot, the BIOS complained:
Hard disk boot sector invalid Press 'H' to retry Hard Disk, any other key for floppy
Having never used Ubuntu before, I was suspicious of its installation process. In any case, Hoare was not a 'stable' release, just a preview release at this time. So, I proceeded installing Debian on it.
Same error.
Then I installed Win2000 on it and there was no error.
I was so confused. I tried debugging the bootcode loader in the MBR and found nothing wrong.
Then today I noticed that Win2000 installation always set the bootable flag of the first partition. I was wondering if that would have any effect at all.
It did. That was the trigger. The BIOS wanted the first partition to have the bootable flag set regardless of whether it is actually a bootable partition. I always put the swap partition as the first partition. So, I now have a bootable swap partition. Whatever that means.
(originally from http://microjet.ath.cx/WebWiki/WhenBIOSBecomesStupid.html)
