Re: GPT vs MBR partitions

On Sun, Aug 13, 2006 at 01:04:09PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> Is there some way to bring some sanity back?  I regularly end up messing up
> one or the other partition table, so it's rather frustrating.
> 
> Can I somehow throw away the MBR table?  Or as a second choice I'd settle
> with throwing away the GPT table.  Any hint?

To boot with the BootCamp method, you need to have the MBR table
available. To be able to apply firmware updates from within Mac OS X,
you need to have the GPT table. So, it's really best to have the dual
setup, weird as it is. However, for sanity's sake, if you modify only
the GPT table, you can then choose the "Start Partitioning Tool" option
in rEFIt, which will sync it to the MBR partition for you. The only
problem with that tool is that, since FAT32/NTFS/Linux partitions all
use the same GPT partition type, it assumes they're all FAT32 when
generating the MBR. Linux shouldn't care about this one way or the
other, but fixing it via fdisk afterwards (either from Mac OS X or from
a boot CD) works fine.

Here's why I think you have been messing up the partition tables by
mistake:

> PS: I can't use GRUB to boot Linux and have to resort to Lilo.  It's not
>     terrible, but I prefer GRUB.  It seems that the problem with GRUB might
>     be related to this partition table problem.  Does anyone know more
>     about it?

You can use GRUB, but if you try to install GRUB in the MBR, it will
overwrite your GPT partition table and not work properly. Installing
GRUB on your /boot partition (or on / if /boot is not a separate
partition) will work fine. You might want to uninstall lilo (restoring
your backup) after you do this so as to reduce the proliferation of
redundant boot options in rEFIt, but make sure it works first. Check the
man page for lilo to learn how to restore the boot sector backup.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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