karl@??? wrote:

> Next scenario is if you have the bootloader on a different media, say
> e.g. a floppy. Then, will lilo load the kernel from disk 2 when disk 1
> fails (assuming mirrored /boot) ? Do grub handle that ?

With Grub you can specify the disk/partition by system device name (eg /dev/sda1) in which case things break if you move disks around.
Or you can use UIDs, in which case it'll find it wherever it is.
Or you can use filesystem labels (eg root=LABEL=root) in which case it'll also find it wherever it is. The latter is more user friendly when you are trying to fix things, but of course you have to manage filesystem labels yourself and ensure that there are no other filesystems with the same label*.
The Debian setup supports device names or UIDs, but not filesystem labels - I have no idea whether this is a Debian thing or an upstream thing.


* There's a security issue if you allow untrusted virtualised guests. The admin of a guest could label one of their filesystems as "root" and then it's lucky dip as to which gets booted next time.