>> This looks as though you're naming the "boot" in /usr/mdec.  That
>> won't work (unless /usr/mdec is actually in your boot partition).
> Yes.  A single partition -- "/" (drive is too small to worry about
> splitting it up...)

Then I have no idea why it failed.  What happened when you tried to
boot from the resulting partition?

> So, if I rm it and add it again later (i.e. so it most likely ends up
> in different sectors, etc.) then I am screwed?

Yes, unless you rerun installboot after you recreate it and before you
next try to boot from that disk.

Or unless you're lucky and the data blocks don't happen to get
overwritten.  I recommend you not count on that. :-)

> Presumably this is because the boot loader (first stage) doesn't have
> enough smarts to walk the file system?

At present it doesn't, correct.  I've heard rumblings that someone is
trying to pack enough smarts into it for it to do so; I don't know how
far that effort has gone.  (7.5K isn't really much room, even when you
don't have to do the actual disk I/O yourself.)

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