On 27/06/12 01:22, Neil Bothwick wrote:

On Wed, 27 Jun 2012 01:06:53 +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:


I'm getting a 2TB drive which uses 4kB sectors instead of 512 byte
ones. I suppose by now everything will "just work" and the various
tools will now by default create correctly aligned partitions?


Thanks everyone for the comments. I'm using cfdisk, since I find it's
the easiest CLI partitioner (fdisk and parted don't offer menus but you
need to type commands; I hate that).


If you use a GPT partition table, you can use cgdisk and banish the
abominations of extended and logical partitions at the same time.


OK, I now have the new disk. Unfortunately, it turns out that GPT is
not an option, since Grub can't dual boot an UEFI/GPT installed Windows
7 (you can't install Windows on a GPT disk if you don't perform a UEFI
install of Windows.) And if Grub can do it, then it's much more
difficult to set up compared to a BIOS boot. I surely don't have a clue
as to how to do that.


So using MS-DOS partition tables in 2012 is still needed. Hooray!

PS:
And don't get me started on the fact that moving my Gentoo install to
the new disk is as simple as "rsync -a -x / /mnt/targetpartition" and
only takes 10 minutes, while Windows has to be cloned using partition
imaging and modifying partition position offsets so installing it from
scratch is actually easier. Sigh...

Hello,

On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>OK, I now have the new disk. Unfortunately, it turns out that GPT is
>not an option, since Grub can't dual boot an UEFI/GPT installed
>Windows 7 (you can't install Windows on a GPT disk if you don't
>perform a UEFI install of Windows.)

You need to boot Windows directly via EFI, and linux via an EFI
elilo or grub-efi or grub2 loader (elilo.efi/grub.efi/grubx64.efi in
the EFI-boot-partition).

See: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/index.html

>And if Grub can do it, then it's much more difficult to set up
>compared to a BIOS boot. I surely don't have a clue as to how to do
>that.

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/booting.html (Section
"Booting from GPT on BIOS-Based Computers", esp. subsection "Windows"
and "Hybrid MBR Issues").

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
(titled: "Hybrid MBRs: The Good, the Bad, and the So Ugly You'll Tear
Your Eyes Out"

HTH,
-dnh

--
Okay, I hate my brain now. I'm going to take it out back and
pummel some sense into it. -- Mark C. Langston

On 29/06/12 07:22, David Haller wrote:

Hello,

On Fri, 29 Jun 2012, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

OK, I now have the new disk. Unfortunately, it turns out that GPT is
not an option, since Grub can't dual boot an UEFI/GPT installed
Windows 7 (you can't install Windows on a GPT disk if you don't
perform a UEFI install of Windows.)


You need to boot Windows directly via EFI, and linux via an EFI
elilo or grub-efi or grub2 loader (elilo.efi/grub.efi/grubx64.efi in
the EFI-boot-partition).

See: http://www.rodsbooks.com/efi-bootloaders/index.html


And if Grub can do it, then it's much more difficult to set up
compared to a BIOS boot. I surely don't have a clue as to how to do
that.


http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/booting.html (Section
"Booting from GPT on BIOS-Based Computers", esp. subsection "Windows"
and "Hybrid MBR Issues").

http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
(titled: "Hybrid MBRs: The Good, the Bad, and the So Ugly You'll Tear
Your Eyes Out"


I settled with an MBR-based boot solution and MSDOS partitioning, like
before. It's easy to setup. The whole EFI multiboot setup does not
seem worth the effort to me. If it was easier to setup, I'd go for it,
but as it stands, it's a nightmare to work with.