[NBLUG/talk] Advanced partition selection

[Lincoln Peters]

I have a custom-built kernel that does not support advanced partition 
selection (i.e. it doesn't support partition tables generated under operating 
systems).  At the time, this made perfect sense--I'm not dual-booting, and 
I've never had problems reading the partition table on a new hard drive.  
However, I've been trying to recover data from a failing hard disk on a 
PowerMac G4, and I wanted to put the disk in a USB enclosure so I could read 
it without having to make any changes (and thus risk further data loss).  But 
since I didn't enable advanced partition selection when I built my kernel, 
the kernel can't read the partition table, and interprets the drive as being 
unpartitioned!  (And I know that it's partitioned because I can read the 
drive just fine if I plug it into my MacBook Pro).

I can rebuild my kernel with the necessary parameters to read a disk 
partitioned by a Mac.  But does anyone know if there is a way to modify the 
kernel so that it supports advanced partition selection WITHOUT having to 
reboot the computer?


-- 
Lincoln Peters		<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
		-- Oscar Wilde