Hi,
I did a virtual install under vmplayer, but on real hard disk of 1.8 TiB
(2 TB). It has to run as root to have access to the disk.
The "bios" screen seems to be bios type, I do not see entries that would hint at uefi.
The relevant settings in the vmx file are, I think, these:
#!/usr/local/bin/vmware
.encoding = "UTF-8"
config.version = "8"
virtualHW.version = "12"
According to
http://www.serverwatch.com/server-tutorials/enabling-uefi-on-virtual-machine...,
to set the bios type to uefi, we need to add this entry:
firmware = "efi"
and it is not there, so it is BIOS.
The disk I partitioned externally with gparted from scratch, creating first
a pure GPT table with some partitions. Then I booted Leap 42.1 install
media on vmlayer to install it, using full disk device. And it boots, but I
don't understand how. O:-)
This is the partition table:
linux-leap421-r:~ # fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 4C81D390-4C41-....
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 30722048 61442047 30720000 14.7G Linux swap
/dev/sda2 2048 30722047 30720000 14.7G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda3 61442048 163842047 102400000 48.8G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4 163842048 163862527 20480 10M BIOS boot
/dev/sda5 163862528 266262527 102400000 48.8G Microsoft basic data
Partition table entries are not in disk order.
linux-leap421-r:~ #
I used "Boot Info Script 0.72"
(https://github.com/arvidjaar/bootinfoscript/raw/master/bootinfoscript)
to obtain information on the boot process.
Notice that there is no partition marked as boot, and that there is a
"BIOS boot" partition, very small.
The MBR has this:
=> Syslinux GPTMBR (4.04-5.01) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.
sda2 is ext4, contains the root of the system, and grub2 is installed on its
boot sector, which looks for core.img at a certain sector. That's normal.
sda4:
File system: BIOS Boot partition
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Not much info about it.
Another view of the partition table:
Disk /dev/sda: 1.8 TiB, 2000398934016 bytes, 3907029168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System
/dev/sda1 1 3,907,029,167 3,907,029,167 ee GPT
GUID Partition Table detected.
Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System
/dev/sda1 30,722,048 61,442,047 30,720,000 Swap partition (Linux)
/dev/sda2 2,048 30,722,047 30,720,000 Data partition (Windows/Linux)
/dev/sda3 61,442,048 163,842,047 102,400,000 Data partition (Windows/Linux)
/dev/sda4 163,842,048 163,862,527 20,480 BIOS Boot partition
/dev/sda5 163,862,528 266,262,527 102,400,000 Data partition
(Windows/Linux)
Now, what I don't understand is, how is BIOS booting this disk. Obviously it
has to read the MBR, and this boots sda2. How does it know it has to boot
this partition? There is no boot mark, so either it is hardcoded, or the
information is in sda4, the "BIOS Boot partition". What is its role?
I have not been able to mount sda4, its filesystem is not recognized.
What controls it?
Probably it is done by "Syslinux GPTMBR", but that's just a guess.
I assume that there is not enough space in the MBR, less than 512 bytes,
to control booting of a GPT disk (in bios mode), so what it does is boot
another partition by location on disk (sector addressing), the "BIOS
Boot partition".
This method of booting is unknown to me, but I'm interested because it
allows me to upgrade the hard disks of my classic BIOS machines to
bigger hard disks. And of course, with GPT disks I can install as many
operating systems I want to boot without "tricks", so it is nice.
But I'd like to know more about it. RTFM pointers appreciated ;-)
P.S., unrelated: I had to resend this using another mail provider, my normal one refused:
<2.6> 2016-02-02 15:49:14 Telcontar postfix 6949 - - Untrusted TLS connection established to smtp.telefonica.net[86.109.99.70]:25: TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)
<2.6> 2016-02-02 15:49:14 Telcontar postfix 6949 - - 0F376609BF: to=