BIBM and UEFI/GPT

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Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by Bob Coleman »

For better or worse, I finally have a PC with UEFI and a GPT disk. When I boot BIBM media, it offers to install BIBM on the hard disk. Attempting to do so would be, at best, useless or, at worst, possibly harmful, right? I think I know the answer, but that's still a question.
mjnelson99
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:24 am

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by mjnelson99 »

Bob,
Not sure about BIBM.

I can tell you I am was able to image using IFL and actually did a
restore of Win 10 just over a month ago.
Mary


On 5/7/2017 4:17 PM, Bob Coleman wrote:
> For better or worse, I finally have a PC with UEFI and a GPT disk. When I boot BIBM media, it offers to install BIBM on the hard disk. Attempting to do so would be, at best, useless or, at worst, possibly harmful, right? I think I know the answer, but that's still a question.
>
>
TAC109
Posts: 273
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 10:41 pm

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by TAC109 »

wrote:
> For better or worse, I finally have a PC with UEFI and a GPT disk. When
> I boot BIBM media, it offers to install >BIBM on the hard disk.
> Attempting to do so would be, at best, useless or, at worst, possibly
> harmful, right? I >think I know the answer, but that's still a question.

I believe that you can use the 'Partition work' part of BIBM on GPT disks,
but not the boot manager part, so there is no point in trying to install
it. 'Partition work' is also in IFL (if you have the BIBM product key), so
you can do the partition work functions from there as well.



Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by Bob Coleman »

TAC109 wrote:

> I believe that you can use the 'Partition work' part of BIBM on GPT disks,
> but not the boot manager part, so there is no point in trying to install
> it. 'Partition work' is also in IFL (if you have the BIBM product key), so
> you can do the partition work functions from there as well.

Yes, I thought all of that also. I was/am mildly curious what would happen if one did try to install it, but I think not curious enough to try it and suffer the possible results.
tas3086
Posts: 316
Joined: Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:15 pm

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by tas3086 »

It would be interesting to know why TerabyteUtilities has not changed BIIBM to be able to take advantage of the GPT/UEFI boot process. Other multi booting systems/capabilities exist, but none seem to be to the same extent and function that BIBM has previously created.

I would not try to install BIBM. While GPT disks have a "fake" MBR partition table, BIBM may assume it is real and would attempt to convert it into an EMBR. This might cause serious problems. Again, I am surprised that Terabyte has not responded to your question.

If you really want to install BIIBM, abandon UEFI and run in legacy mode, and convert your disk to MBR, or better yet, add an additional MBR drive to your system. A USB or SD card may also work.
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by CyberSimian »

tas3086 wrote:
> I would not try to install BIBM. While GPT disks have a "fake"
> MBR partition table, BIBM may assume it is real and would attempt to
> convert it into an EMBR. This might cause serious problems.

My Lenovo laptop has a 128 GB NVMe SSD and a 1 TB SATA SSD (originally this was a 1 TB HDD, but I replaced it). The SATA SSD is formatted as MBR, with BIBM installed for multibooting and imaging purposes. The NVMe SSD is formatted as GPT. BIBM correctly recognises the nature of each disk (MBR and GPT).

The reason why I keep the NVMe SSD as GPT is related to updating the BIOS on the Lenovo. The tool that Lenovo supply to update the BIOS operates only on Windows installed on a GPT disk running in UEFI mode. So I keep the original Windows 10 pre-load on the NVMe SSD so that I can boot it via the Lenovo BIOS (cannot boot it using BIBM), and then update the laptop BIOS. One quirk: when booting an OS on the SATA SSD (MBR), it is not possible to stop the booted operating system from seeing the contents of the GPT disk -- BIBM always fills in the boot item with the GPT entry.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1643
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

BIBM won't install to a GPT disk. In a system with both GPT and MBR/EMBR disks you would need to do a manual install or reconfigure a MBR/EMBR disk as the booting disk.
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by DrTeeth »

On Mon, 8 May 2017 23:26:04 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
TeraByte Support(PP) disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>BIBM won't install to a GPT disk

Is this fixable? I could not imagine not using the BIBM boot manager.
--
Cheers,

DrT

"If you want to find out what is wrong
with democracy, spend five minutes with
the average voter." - Winston Churchill
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by Bob Coleman »

If I make a full disk backup of the GPT disk, attempt to convert it to EMBR, and somehow end up with an unbootable mess, can I have reasonable confidence that restoring the full disk backup would restore the disk to its working GPT state?
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1643
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: BIBM and UEFI/GPT

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Yes. Making a backup before converting is recommended. You can use the TBOSDT chgdtype.tbs script to convert the disk between the different types or you can do the conversion manually. The following KB articles have more information:

Convert a Disk from GPT to MBR or MBR to GPT Using the chgdtype.tbs Script
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=604

Converting a GPT Data or Windows Disk to MBR/EMBR
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=580
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