Handbook Talk:AMD64/Installation/Disks

To get my bios to recognize my GPT, I had to set the protective MBR flag to "on" in parted, thusly:

disk_set pmbr_boot on

Without this flag set, GRUB wasn't even recognized. This may help some people, and may be a good tidbit/candidate for including in the handbook!


 * , good to know. Thanks. Be be sure to sign you comments using the signature button found in the toolbar above. --Maffblaster (talk) 18:12, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Paragraphs of "Alternative: Using fdisk to partition the disk" are not clears
I think we are using a MBR disk label. True?

In "Alternative: Using fdisk to partition the disk" it say "Mark the partition for EFI purposes:". What means this. It suppose we are in a BIOS boot, not EFI boot.

The command box say "Changed system type of partition 1 to 4 (BIOS boot)". The type of partition for code 4 is "FAT16 <32M" on fdisk.

In the next command box /dev/sda1 is changed and now show "EFI (FAT-12/16/32)"

Are these some mistakes? Quilosaq (talk) 00:16, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The paragraph of "Introduction to block devices" is confusing for newbies. Why is not there a step by step guide what to do to get partitioned disk when using MBR and an another guide when using EFI?

It is not clear what to do to get a filesystem on BIOS boot partition? Which filesystem should there created out there? --Best, Pál (talk) 11:18, 11 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi Pál,


 * I see your dilemma and concur a change needs to be made defining BIOS and EFI disk partitioning. I'll work on making the changes a bit later today. --Maffblaster (talk) 13:01, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

This has yet to be corrected and is not only confusing, but is also incorrect for the stated purpose of this part of the guide, which is:


 * "The instructions given below assume that the partition layout being used is MBR."

When using MBR, there is no need to have a BIOS boot partition. According to this Wikipedia entry:


 * "A BIOS boot partition is needed because GPT uses the disk sectors immediately following the Master Boot Record (MBR) to hold the actual partition table, whereas the traditional MBR-based partitioning scheme does not..."

It even states clearly in a paragraph further up on the page titled What is the BIOS boot partition? that


 * "the BIOS boot partition is needed when GPT partition layout is used with GRUB2, or when the MBR partition layout is used with GRUB2 when the first partition starts earlier than the 1 MB location on the disk."

When creating the boot partition for the MBR partitioning scheme, it is more than enough to start at 2048 (as is written in the guide). You can even emphasis this if you like.

The entire chapter titled Creating the BIOS boot partition should either be removed from this section, or as an alternative the chapter should be renamed to Creating the BIOS boot partition (UEFI only) in order to emphasis the purpose of this chapter.

Furthermore, as mentioned by Quilosaq in the opening of this conversation, this same chapter includes incorrect information starting at "Mark the partition for UEFI purposes:". Quilosaq is correct in his assertion that choosing number 4 results in FAT16 <32M, which is necessary assuming UEFI, but the code example shows "Changed system type of partition 1 to 4 (BIOS boot)", which is simply incorrect, and not the result of choosing number 4. --Platoxia (talk) 08:05, 11 July 2016 (UTC)