Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266541AbVBED3X (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 Feb 2005 22:29:23 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266924AbVBED3W (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 Feb 2005 22:29:22 -0500 Received: from mail-in-02.arcor-online.net ([151.189.21.42]:34696 "EHLO mail-in-02.arcor-online.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266541AbVBEC6c (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 Feb 2005 21:58:32 -0500 From: Bodo Eggert <7eggert@gmx.de> Subject: Re: 3TB disk hassles To: Neil Conway , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Reply-To: 7eggert@gmx.de Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 03:58:39 +0100 References: User-Agent: KNode/0.7.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Message-Id: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 993 Lines: 14 Neil Conway wrote: > I thought sure I had read somewhere that typical x86 PC BIOSes just > didn't understand the GPT ptbl, and thus couldn't boot from a GPT'ed > disk. No common x86 BIOS can understand any partition table. Booting is done by loading the first sector of the boot device and executing it. The common MBR code will move it's code to a unused location, load the first sector of the active partition and execute it. If you replace the MBR code with the GPT MBR code, it should understand GPTs. If you replace it with lilo or grub, one of these tools will run. If you replace it with a boot virus, it will (usurally) install it's hooks and chain-load the original boot sector, which in turn does it's work. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/