Is it possible to convert MBR to GPT without data loss / corruption using gdisk?

The answer is "yes", with some provisions.

Editing the partition table doesn't actually affect data on the drive at all. You can delete a partition with fdisk or gdisk or any other tool, but unless you create a new partition and overwrite that part of the drive, the data will still be there. Recreating the partition with the exact same parameters will cause the file system to reappear completely intact.

Having said that, there may be issues with converting certain MBR-based systems to GPT, simply because the GPT takes up more space than the MBR. It is possible for a partition on an MBR-partitioned drive to occupy parts of the disk that would be needed by the GUID Partition Table itself.

Your existing MBR was probably created by fdisk or cfdisk or the distribution installer. Older versions of fdisk followed the same convention as the Microsoft partitioning tool in Windows XP/2003 and earlier versions, which is to let the first partition start at sector 63. That would not be a problem, as the GPT uses sectors 1 - 33. Later versions of fdisk will use sector 2048 as the default starting sector for the first partition. However, in both cases the start sector can be overridden by the user.

A second copy of the GPT is stored in reverse order at the end of the disk. Again, it only takes up 34 sectors, but if a partition continues right up to the very last sector on the drive, creating a GPT will overwrite the last 34 sectors of that partition.

See what fdisk -l has to say about your current partition table, and back up the partition table (or rather, the first 2048 sectors of your drive) before you attempt to convert the partition scheme to GPT.

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Do *not* attempt to use fdisk. Read this and use gdisk.
I personally have only ever used it when converting a new disk - i.e. with data I don't care about. Has worked without discernable loss for me though.

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@ Olmy:

Here is what fdisk spat out about my partition table:
<CODE>
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 4294862847 2147430400 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 4294864896 5860532223 782833664 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT</CODE>


As seen I do have 2048 in front of sdb1 (I remember leaving 1MB space preceding the MBR when creating my partitions). so sdb1 looks safe. sdb2 let me calculate... to see how much I got left.

Thanks, and yes I know the gdisk is pretty much the latest and best supported version for GPT.

Yes, there's plenty of room for the GPT at the start of the drive.

fdisk will have reported the number of sectors on the drive as well, a few lines above the actual partition table. That should tell you if the other partition covers the entire disk. If it does, it will have to be shrunk ever so slightly to accommodate the backup GPT.

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Thanks I noticed later the top of the fdisk spat out total sectors:

Disk /dev/sdb: 3000.6 GB, 3000592982016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 364801 cylinders, total 5860533168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00024a97

So I just subtract from that number and answer = 945 sectors left. So I should be fine! Thanks again Ser Olmy!

Oh, it's even better than that.

According to fdisk you have a 3000 Gb drive, but since fdisk is bound by the limitations of the MBR format, it cannot "see" the parts of the drive that lie beyond 2 Tb (or "TiB" as it's called these days). So you've got those 945 sectors plus an entire terabyte available.

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AFAIK, MBR sees upto 2TB per partition (not drive). I remember, when I created the 2 partitions fdisk gave a warning saying it can do only upto 2TB. Hopefully you are right. Let me GPT my disk and see what happens.

You're right of course. You have two partitions, so you've been able to use the entire drive.

What can I say, it's very late here.

Here is the Results

All worked fine,

Disk /dev/sdb: 5860533168 sectors, 2.7 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): XXX
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 5860533134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 4973 sectors (2.4 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 4294862847 2.0 TiB 8300 ext4
2 4294864896 5860532223 746.6 GiB 0700 ntfs

Now, I am thinking would it be smarter to do LVM since there is so much space?

Thanks for staying up so late and all the help

Its almost 2AM over here as well. Gettin my geek on tonight!