nixus:
In this case it really makes no difference, but the fact is you do not have a boot partition; you have a typical Windows installation and a Linux Installation. No dedicated boot partition at all. Saying you have a boot partition, when you do not, only adds confusion to the conversation.
In the Unix/Linux world a boot partition is a separate small partition, typically 100 MB or less, but can be more if needed, that holds copies of all the kernels and initrd images needed to boot all the installed operating systems on the computer, and usually it is placed as the first partition on a hard drive. While Linux itself can boot from any partition it is installed on, older BIOS, and the old LILO boot loader, could only see the first 1024 cylinders of the drive, so on larger drives, with installations above that range, a boot partition was a necessity; ie all Linux kernels had to be found within that range or they couldn't be found at all, so placing them in the (hd0,0) partition insured they could be found and loaded. Once loaded the kernel could see the entire drive, and use / partitions above the 1024 cylinder BIOS/LILO limit.
Newer BIOS, and the Linux boot loaders no longer have this limitation, but boot partitions are still common with muli-booting Linux systems. Though not a necessity anymore, they are good insurance, in that all installations can be booted from two separate locations on the drive; the / partition or the boot partition. Should the kernel or initrd image in one location become corrupt, the system can still be booted using the other copies of the kernel and initrd image in the second location.
All my hard drives have a boot partition and at least one operating system installed, with grub installed to the MBR of each drive. I can therefor designate any of my hard drives as the boot drive, in BIOS,and there will be at least one bootable system available. My master menu.lst for each hard drive has boot stanzas for all of the installations on all of the hard drives, but each drive can actually be used independent of all the others if I wish. Before USB drives became bootable in BIOS, I had all my drives in removable drive bays, so I could pick and choose which to place in any computer at any time and still have a fully bootable system if I only chose to have any one drive present. Now most of my drives are in USB/E-SATA external enclosures so I have the same flexibility on more modern computers.
