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Old 08-01-2014, 06:54 PM   #1
loneguolf
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can Gparted convert a whole disk from GPT to MBR?


hi everyone
came here to ask if gparted can really convert a gpt disk to mbr

just bought a new laptop, a lenovo g400s with the windows 8.1 setup, i wanted to have back my old style and have 3 OS in a single computer, well tried it once with a friend's computer and it all went good, but not feeling so sure about this time

firstly, i disabled secureboot, then i changed the boot mode in the BIOS, from uefi to legacy, and the device order to legacy too, booted from live usb a sparkylinux and used gparted to create a new partition table with the "msdos" default option, i assume msdos partition table is mbr cuz i have used it a lot before, after setting up all my partitions, i installed sparky just to have somewhere to land, it was all good, but something in the end freaked me out, it was in the black screen with verbose stuff: "attention: GUID partition table detected" or something like that, im not sure if it was nothing to worry about or a real warning

i googled a bit to find out whats up, and i read somewhere that "....mbr only uses the first sector of the disk while gpt uses the other 34, so instead of a mbr disk, it would be a hybrid gpt", im not quite sure about what is that, thats why before continuing, i wanted an opinion from you guys

so, can gparted totally convert a disk from gpt to mbr?
thank you for your time, i hope someone can help me
have a good day
 
Old 08-01-2014, 08:26 PM   #2
syg00
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Recent libparted (which gparted uses) is certainly guid aware - I doubt it would have changed it. If it had, you would have lost Win8.
From a linux do this from a terminal and post the results
Code:
sudo parted -l
 
Old 08-01-2014, 08:44 PM   #3
jefro
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EaseUS Partiton Manager may be able. Gparted can but not sure if can do it without data loss.

Not sure what the state of your system is in actually right now.

I think I'd have just run a virtual machine in W8.
 
Old 08-01-2014, 11:19 PM   #4
loneguolf
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hi hi
about windows8, i wiped the disk entirely, so that thing got deleted, right now im running sparky in sda1 and using home in sda6


Model: ATA ST1000LM024 HN-M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 142GB 142GB primary ext4
2 142GB 284GB 142GB primary ext4
3 284GB 425GB 142GB primary fat32
4 425GB 1000GB 575GB extended
5 425GB 428GB 2212MB logical linux-swap(v1)
6 428GB 614GB 187GB logical ext4
7 614GB 801GB 187GB logical ext4
8 801GB 1000GB 199GB logical fat32

i like how it says "partition table:msdos", but that gpt thing still bothers me
so, do i have a mbr disk, or a hybrid gpt disk?
thanks for your answers and your time
have a good day

Last edited by loneguolf; 08-01-2014 at 11:39 PM. Reason: forgot to thank
 
Old 08-01-2014, 11:50 PM   #5
syg00
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Interesting - I can only assume there is old GPT entries in the space between the MBR and the start of partition 1.
Message can be ignored I imagine.

BTW, you could have happily installed mutiple O/Ss on gpt formatted disk - it's the way of the future, but MBR still works.
 
Old 08-02-2014, 12:59 AM   #6
loneguolf
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hi hi again
i changed back to mbr cuz my favorite operating systems wont run in gpt
well, i will continue to install my stuff, if i see something interesting regarding the gpt thing, i will report it if necesary

thank you very much, have a good day
see ya
 
  


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