[opensuse] multi-boot with XP, Win7, SuSE 12.1 and dealing with EFI
Up until this point, I know how to install SuSE along with older versions of Windows such as NT4 or XP. Now I am trying to setup a new HP PC with XP, Win7 and SuSE 12.1. When I get to the SuSE part, I am running into trouble with the partition setup. I started out with using gparted to create a primary partion for Win7, XP and a small boot partition for SuSE. For the remainder of the drive I created an extended partition where I have the linux swap and xfs partition for SuSE to use as / Now suddenly I am thrown into a new world that I know very little about. The SuSE install squawked about an efi problem with the boot partition I made (it said it had to be a FAT). I changed it to FAT and now I get a squawk about a GPT label. I have been trying to do some reading on this but am having trouble getting the big picture of efi and gpt and what they mean to my situation. I think that if I understood it well enough, I could probably figure out what to do myself. Is there anyone who understand this well enough to help me understand this? I have XP32, Win7 64 and SuSE 12.1 64. Damon Regi -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 8/23/2012 12:56 PM, Damon Register wrote:
Up until this point, I know how to install SuSE along with older versions of Windows such as NT4 or XP. Now I am trying to setup a new HP PC with XP, Win7 and SuSE 12.1. When I get to the SuSE part, I am running into trouble with the partition setup. I started out with using gparted to create a primary partion for Win7, XP and a small boot partition for SuSE. For the remainder of the drive I created an extended partition where I have the linux swap and xfs partition for SuSE to use as /
Now suddenly I am thrown into a new world that I know very little about. The SuSE install squawked about an efi problem with the boot partition I made (it said it had to be a FAT). I changed it to FAT and now I get a squawk about a GPT label.
I have been trying to do some reading on this but am having trouble getting the big picture of efi and gpt and what they mean to my situation. I think that if I understood it well enough, I could probably figure out what to do myself. Is there anyone who understand this well enough to help me understand this? I have XP32, Win7 64 and SuSE 12.1 64.
Well, a FAT is just a part of a filesystem, not a partition table, while GPT is a partition table. You could put a dos filesystem, which includes a fat, inside of a gpt partition, just as easily as an mbr partition (technically called an msdos disklabel, aka the regular old 4 primary partitions) Another confusing element is it's possible to have both mbr and gpt on the same disk at the same time, because the two schemes reside in different physical places on the disk. Only one can actually be valid at a time, but if you create a gpt and then create a mbr without actually erasing the gpt, many things will still see the gpt data and think you have a broken gpt instead of a good mbr and some other data that is to be ignored. Another confusing element is calling the partition scheme mbr, when mbr also means just the tiny boot record at the beginning, which can be overwritten any time by other boot loaders of your choice and doesn't care whether you have mbr or gpt partition tables. And it's other name, msdos disklabel, is just as bad because it's not just a dos thing for dos filesystems. So anyways, if you had a gpt and then wanted to switch to using mbr, you can't just create the mbr, you have to also erase the gpt to prevent various things from getting confused. The gpt lives at both ends of the disk, beginning and end. Wikipedia gpt to see the diagram. mbr is only at the beginning. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:32:24 -0400
"Brian K. White"
On 8/23/2012 12:56 PM, Damon Register wrote:
Up until this point, I know how to install SuSE along with older versions of Windows such as NT4 or XP. Now I am trying to setup a new HP PC with XP, Win7 and SuSE 12.1. When I get to the SuSE part, I am running into trouble with the partition setup. I started out with using gparted to create a primary partion for Win7, XP and a small boot partition for SuSE. For the remainder of the drive I created an extended partition where I have the linux swap and xfs partition for SuSE to use as /
Now suddenly I am thrown into a new world that I know very little about. The SuSE install squawked about an efi problem with the boot partition I made (it said it had to be a FAT). I changed it to FAT and now I get a squawk about a GPT label.
I have been trying to do some reading on this but am having trouble getting the big picture of efi and gpt and what they mean to my situation. I think that if I understood it well enough, I could probably figure out what to do myself. Is there anyone who understand this well enough to help me understand this? I have XP32, Win7 64 and SuSE 12.1 64.
Well, a FAT is just a part of a filesystem, not a partition table, while GPT is a partition table.
You could put a dos filesystem, which includes a fat, inside of a gpt partition, just as easily as an mbr partition (technically called an msdos disklabel, aka the regular old 4 primary partitions)
Another confusing element is it's possible to have both mbr and gpt on the same disk at the same time, because the two schemes reside in different physical places on the disk. Only one can actually be valid at a time, but if you create a gpt and then create a mbr without actually erasing the gpt, many things will still see the gpt data and think you have a broken gpt instead of a good mbr and some other data that is to be ignored.
Another confusing element is calling the partition scheme mbr, when mbr also means just the tiny boot record at the beginning, which can be overwritten any time by other boot loaders of your choice and doesn't care whether you have mbr or gpt partition tables. And it's other name, msdos disklabel, is just as bad because it's not just a dos thing for dos filesystems.
So anyways, if you had a gpt and then wanted to switch to using mbr, you can't just create the mbr, you have to also erase the gpt to prevent various things from getting confused. The gpt lives at both ends of the disk, beginning and end. Wikipedia gpt to see the diagram. mbr is only at the beginning.
Hi You need to use gdisk, for example on this system, I only run linux systems though ;) http://paste.opensuse.org/634560 I used partition magic to setup the drive. -- Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890) SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 3.0.38-0.5-default up 1 day 18:49, 2 users, load average: 0.59, 1.12, 0.93 CPU Intel i5 CPU M520@2.40GHz | Intel Arrandale GPU -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 8/23/2012 3:32 PM, Brian K. White wrote:
Another confusing element is it's possible to have both mbr and gpt on the same disk at the same I don't know if I could take that headache.
So anyways, if you had a gpt and then wanted to switch to using mbr, you can't just create the mbr, you have to also erase the gpt to prevent various things from getting confused. The gpt lives at I was suspecting that I might have a tangled mix so I did a wipe with dban and started over with a traditional partition table. when I tried to install SuSE, I still found it insisting on a gpt type setup. When I booted again to start setup over, I discovered that if I press escape at the ELILO prompt, the install falls back to something that seemed more familiar and it accepted the non gpt setup that I wanted to do. Is that a documented feature that I just haven't run across yet or a secret that only a few know? :-)
both ends of the disk, beginning and end. Wikipedia gpt to see the diagram. mbr is only at the beginning. I tried but I had a hard time understanding it. Anyway, I got the PC setup the way I wanted with XP, Win7 and SuSE. Thanks for the help.
Damon Register -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
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Damon Register -
Malcolm