GPT windows 7/8 Organizing partitions They changed something fundamental (boot block something unix always claimed was rotton, but problems arise) A) Basic question. Since GPT and windows 7/8 we start seeing mysterious(more or less) partitions.All called recovery, reset... and now with uefi , or insydh20... bios with non clear specs. So I do not know what is needed and wat is not. To add to confusion people sugest to clean all in diskpart what seems to indicate there is nothing realy essential in most of these partitions. Bach to BASIC question: Does UEFI and/or insydh20 Need disk partitions to do its work? I've an ACERV3-771G and there 2 partitions (first and last where there are some doubts) Machine ACER V3 771G bios 2.3(win8) no touch screen so not very handy.... disk/part0/1 GTP 400mb Recovery OEM-reserved (300Mb) untouched Probably needed by the BIOS ???? disk/part0/2 GTP/ESP 300Mb Win8 boot want it to be win7 boot ? disk/part0/3 GTP/MBR(reserved) 128Mb disk/part0/4 GTP/intended SYSTEM win8 DISK 670 Gig disk/part0/5 GTP/push button reset(reserved) 21GIG (OEM RESERVED) assumed win8 +10GIG of other stuff I do not know about 16 GIG is required to do a full backup. The main worry is what is in the first partition???? is this needed for the BIOS A suggested clean could destroy the machine in this way. Itseems unreasonable to me that a 3.2 gig windows 8 distribution takes up 21 GIG wat kind of stuff is added i'm not intending to use this any way. I seem to be able to download all divers from the support site and they are more up to date then whatever is on that disk. I prefere to have a more then Home version running on my portable for security reasons. Can someone explain please B) GPT MBR(reserved partition) ???? This sits nicely in the middle .... as I erased partitions 2 and 4 to split up 4 in 80Gig(system) and 500 gig+ user data a new 300mb partition is added after GPT/mbr (I suspect a new GPT/ESP for the newly installed system) (BY WIN8 instalation) and a new 128 mb partition is added after previous one (I suspect a new GPT/MBR for the newly installed system) is this assumption correct ??? Could I erase partitions 02/03/04 and would win8 install all properly recreating a new correct GPT/MBR partition ? Should the instalation not have recognised the original ESP/MBR and reused them ???? By the way I would have prefered to install a Windows 7 GPT UEFI on my portable. THis seems to be impossible AS uefi is enabled NO CDROM/usb device is bootable by the seemingly very primitive UEFI boot??? rom this needs to be enabled to allow WIN7 instalation to use GPT otherwise WIN7 refuses GPT instalation and only wants the old MBR way All explaining welcome a) disk/part0/1 GTP 400mb Recovery OEM-reserved (300Mb) is this related to the bios ???? what is it used for by? b) why is disk/part0/5 GTP/push button reset(reserved) 21 Gig and 16 gig + to backup c) can MBR partition be erased and will it be recrated by installing win8 d) experience installing win7 on GPT (acer v3-771G) not using mbr
100mb SYSTEM partition is required 128mb MSR partition is required primary partition size requirement depends on the OS. Recovery partition is set up by Win8 setup, but I'm unclear as to whether or not it's actually necessary. It could perhaps be bypassed by manually applying the OS and running bcdboot on the target windows folder. Perhaps it sets it up during the initial user creation portion of setup. I don't really know. Win7 does not support secure boot. Enabling it will fail the efi loader and trigger a mock recovery. Disabling it will give the annoying watermark in 8.1 There are certain versions of Windows that allow portable installs. Windows Enterprise uses "Windows to Go" to install on portable hard drives. Just run a search for it in any Windows Enterprise version. All GPT partitioned drives have at least a MSR 128meg partition Only the booted drive needs the 100meg SYSTEM partition Sorry, I know you made points with specific letters and all, but maybe someone else could fill in on the issues I may have overlooked...
I suppose all partitions are required, certainly MBR But it being in the middle it wasts space . and apearently it is recreated? if Im right All win7 and Win 8 have a boot recovery partition that I think is called EFI or so it seems to be reallocated .... Still ambigous , MBR the partition marked MBR
Code: DISKPART> ? create partition Microsoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600 EFI - Create an EFI system partition. EXTENDED - Create an extended partition. LOGICAL - Create a logical drive. MSR - Create a Microsoft Reserved partition. PRIMARY - Create a primary partition. DISKPART> ? create partition msr Creates a Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition on a GUID partition table (GPT) disk. Syntax: CREATE PARTITION MSR [SIZE=<N>] [OFFSET=<N>] [NOERR] SIZE=<N> The size of the partition in megabytes (MB). The partition is at least as big in bytes as the number specified by N. If no size is given, the partition continues until there is no more free space in the current region. OFFSET=<N> The offset, in kilobytes (KB), at which the partition is created. If no offset is given, the partition is placed in the first disk extent that is large enough to hold it. NOERR For scripting only. When an error is encountered, DiskPart continues to process commands as if the error did not occur. Without the NOERR parameter, an error causes DiskPart to exit with an error code. A basic GPT disk must be selected for this operation to succeed. Caution: Be very careful when using this command. Because GPT disks require a specific partition layout, creating Microsoft Reserved partitions could cause the disk to become unreadable. On GPT disks that are used to boot Windows, the EFI System partition is the first partition on the disk, followed by the Microsoft Reserved partition. GPT disks used only for data storage do not have an EFI System partition, in which case the Microsoft Reserved partition is the first partition. Windows does not online Microsoft Reserved partitions. You cannot store data on them and you cannot delete them. Example: CREATE PARTITION MSR SIZE=1000 DISKPART> ? create partition efi Creates an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) system partition on a GUID partition table (GPT) disk. Syntax: CREATE PARTITION EFI [SIZE=<N>] [OFFSET=<N>] [NOERR] SIZE=<N> The size of the partition in megabytes (MB). If no size is given, the partition continues until there is no more free space in the current region. OFFSET=<N> The offset, in kilobytes (KB), at which the partition is created. If no offset is given, the partition is placed in the first disk extent that is large enough to hold it. NOERR For scripting only. When an error is encountered, DiskPart continues to process commands as if the error did not occur. Without the NOERR parameter, an error causes DiskPart to exit with an error code. After the partition has been created, the focus is given to the new partition. A basic GPT disk must be selected for this operation to succeed. Example: CREATE PARTITION EFI SIZE=1000 DISKPART> MSR is for recovery, EFI is for bootloaders.