Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

User discussion and information resource forum for BootIt Bare Metal and BootIt UEFI
Post Reply
bbearren
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:02 pm

Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by bbearren »

I recently finished converting my laptop to UEFI. The motherboard is UEFI capable, but it was disabled by default, and the OS and software were OEM installed in MBR. I had BootIt BM installed on the drive, but the drive has to be cleaned in order to convert to GPT.

After the conversion and restoring my OS and software using TBWinRE and IFW, I intended to reinstall BootIt BM, but got an error message that BootIt could only be installed if the partitions were marked as MBR. I am a bit confused by that - I'm using BootIt from a CD drive at present, but I prefer it on the hdd. How do I make the partitions MBR, and will that interfere with GPT?

FWIW, I made the conversion in order to become more familiar with GPT, since we appear to be inexorably migrating to UEFI/GPT.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by TeraByte Support »

You can't currently install BootIt on a GPT drive. You can have your data
drives GPT.

"bbearren" wrote in message news:4628@public.bootitbm...

I recently finished converting my laptop to UEFI. The motherboard is UEFI
capable, but it was disabled by default, and the OS and software were OEM
installed in MBR. I had BootIt BM installed on the drive, but the drive has
to be cleaned in order to convert to GPT.

After the conversion and restoring my OS and software using TBWinRE and IFW,
I intended to reinstall BootIt BM, but got an error message that BootIt
could only be installed if the partitions were marked as MBR. I am a bit
confused by that - I'm using BootIt from a CD drive at present, but I prefer
it on the hdd. How do I make the partitions MBR, and will that interfere
with GPT?

FWIW, I made the conversion in order to become more familiar with GPT, since
we appear to be inexorably migrating to UEFI/GPT.

bbearren
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 2:02 pm

Re: Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by bbearren »

TeraByte Support wrote:
> You can't currently install BootIt on a GPT drive. You can have your data drives GPT.

BootIt BM does just fine handling partitioning/formatting chores on the GPT drive. I just have to boot the CD, but it boots without having to disable EFI. I format my partitions NTFS for Windows. Could I install BootIt BM if I created a small fat32 partition and pointed it there?
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by TeraByte Support »

Has to be an EMBR partitioning type, EMBR is compatible with MBR but not
GPT.

"bbearren" wrote in message news:4633@public.bootitbm...

TeraByte Support wrote:
> You can't currently install BootIt on a GPT drive. You can have your data
> drives GPT.

BootIt BM does just fine handling partitioning/formatting chores on the GPT
drive. I just have to boot the CD, but it boots without having to disable
EFI. I format my partitions NTFS for Windows. Could I install BootIt BM if
I created a small fat32 partition and pointed it there?

Rued64
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 9:01 pm

Re: Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by Rued64 »

More or less the same here... (have to switch to UEFI and GPT)

I'd like to find some detailed information on what is possible and what not with BootIt and the imaging products, if it comes to UEFI, GPT, etc. But neither in the manual nor in the knowledge base I could find something like a summarizing overview. Please give me a link, if I overlooked that, otherwise it might be about time for that...

E.g.:

> What is the best way to go with BootIt, if you have a drive >2TB (therefore GPT) and want to use BootIt as bootmanager?
- Does this still makes sense or should we go for UEFI- or Windows based bootmanagers?

> Is it possible to use (E)MBR and GPT drives simultaneously (e.g. SSD as EMBR and HDD as GPT)?
- Can BootIt be installed on the SSD in this scenario and can it boot partitions on the hdd (GPT) as well?
- Should the M/B run in pure UEFI in this case or legacy mode (BIOS)?

> What is the issue, that BootIt BM cannot be installed on GPT drives? Will there be a release in near future being compatible with GPT drives?
- If not, what about the so called "hybrid-mbr" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Part ... 28LBA_0.29 ; last paragraph) partitioning?

> Work-around: Can BootIT BM installed on a USB stick holding boot data (what is normally stored in the EMBR partition: boot partition, partitions visible, etc.)?

> What about the imaging programs: Are there any restrictions concerning saving/restoring GPT partitions or drives?
- Can those images be used to cross the two types, e.g. from MBR to GPT?

> What about those UEFI features as Fast Startup? What is the issue here? I'd like to roughly understand what's happening (I think BootIT BM users have to...)

> Same for Rapid Boot...

> ...and may be for other stuff like Secure Boot, TPM, etc. Any restrictions? Anything to consider here?

> Last-but-not-least: UEFI seems to make the run, regardless of its security/privacy issues (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_E ... #Criticism). Or not?
- What are your recommendations? Stay at BIOS? Use leagacy (BIOS) mode? Coreboot, etc.? What is the future also in combination with BootIt products?


Also any user feedback is very welcome...

Rüdiger
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by TeraByte Support »

Rued64 wrote:

> > What is the best way to go with BootIt, if you have a drive >2TB (therefore GPT) and want to use BootIt as bootmanager?

You'd want to have your OSes on a drive <2TiB (or otherwise only get use of 2TiB on that drive) while having your data on the larger drive.

> > - Does this still makes sense or should we go for UEFI- or Windows based bootmanagers?

You'd only be able to do that for basically W8/10 at the current time.

> > Is it possible to use (E)MBR and GPT drives simultaneously (e.g. SSD as EMBR and HDD as GPT)?

Yes.

> - Can BootIt be installed on the SSD in this scenario and can it boot partitions on the hdd (GPT) as well?

No. it will boot the partition on a drive using MBR/EMBR

> - Should the M/B run in pure UEFI in this case or legacy mode (BIOS)?

UEFI mode loads a file to boot instead of loading the MBR to boot.

>
> What is the issue, that BootIt BM cannot be installed on GPT drives?

Be pointless currently, since it wouldn't boot anything on the GPT drive. It can't boot the partition in most cases, it has to load the file and adjust whatever other files the kernel loader uses for the particular OS.

> Will there be a release in near future being compatible with GPT drives?

Can't say never, but for multi-booting, not in the next month.

> - If not, what about the so called "hybrid-mbr" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Part ... 28LBA_0.29 ; last paragraph) partitioning?

hybrid boot is not currently supported and would have to be tested if an OS would even honor it.

> Work-around: Can BootIT BM installed on a USB stick holding boot data (what is normally stored in the EMBR partition: boot partition, partitions visible, etc.)?

Yes, if the BIOS boots it like a HD and will actually boot in in legacy mode, you can even use the one you created with makedisk, just remove the news.hlp file and that changes it from an install type boot disk to an installed version style.

> > What about the imaging programs: Are there any restrictions concerning saving/restoring GPT partitions or drives?

No restrictions.

> - Can those images be used to cross the two types, e.g. from MBR to GPT?

Yes, the partitions individually can be restored, but if you do an entire drive backup/restore the partitioning will match whatever you backed up.

> What about those UEFI features as Fast Startup? What is the issue here? I'd like to roughly understand what's happening (I think BootIT BM users have to...)

There is a link at the top of the forum that summary.

> Same for Rapid Boot...

You mean the drives that have a cache to speed up reads. Provide it's transparent, it can't conflict with anything.

>
> > ...and may be for other stuff like Secure Boot, TPM, etc. Any restrictions?
> Anything to consider here?

You can boot IFL/IFW with Secure Boot for systems that have the MS certificate that they sign it with available (surface pro hasn't in the past which means you'd have to disable secure boot to boot IFL). If by TPM, you mean the older/better method of locking down the boot code, you could set the MBR to whatever code you want then lock it down.

>
> > Last-but-not-least: UEFI seems to make the run, regardless of its security/privacy issues
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_E ... #Criticism). Or not?

"Make the run"? Not sure what you mean.

> - What are your recommendations? Stay at BIOS? Use leagacy (BIOS) mode? Coreboot,
> etc.? What is the future also in combination with BootIt products?

You can stay with the BIOS, it's fine. The device interface is the same, the only difference is how you make the call to the BIOS/UEFI to read/write. Right now full apps under UEFI can be problematic since so many bugs in so many UEFI implementations. Hopefully that gets better over time... In reality, UEFI should be done with the best/fastest interface with stable ability to handle all the devices and hot swapping, then you can have a lot of OSes built on top of it to provide a hardware independent interface to the OS, just like DOS was on top of the BIOS. But they seem to go out of the way to make sure that isn't the case.
Rued64
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 9:01 pm

Re: Installing BooIt Bare Metal on GPT drive

Post by Rued64 »

Many thanks for such a detailed summary, I hadn't expected here in a forum (might be a nice and helpful page in the manual). That makes me understand the reasons for the restrictions and partly how to deal with them.

I really like BootIt BM for many years and I hope there will be a way for your programmers to deal with that file based boot procedure soon before to many jump off...

For me, I'll try to find a mixed EMBR/GPT solution. The difficulty is that SSDs normally are to small for multiple OS's and the harddrives to large for MBR. At least I'll stay with the imaging programs.


Sorry for my lack of vocabulary ("Make the run"). I meant "Win the race", but now it's more or less a one-horse race. Almost all newer boards have UEFI... MS will even force OEMs to to use and enable the UEFI/Secure Boot stuff...

Last question concerning the last paragraph of your answer ("stay with the BIOS"): You mean choosing Legacy mode? Which calls? BootIt's/IFD's/IFL's/IFW's drive accesses?


Thanks again for your effort and also the hint with the deletion of news.hlp file

Regards Rüdiger
Post Reply