Stage 1 can either load Stage 2 directly , or it can load stage 1.5 : GRUB Stage 1.5 is located in the first 30 kilobytes of hard disk immediately following the MBR . Stage 1 can load Stage 2 directly , but it 's normally set up to load Stage 1.5 . GRUB Stage 1.5 is located in the first 30 kilobytes of hard disk immediately following the MBR and before the first partition .