Install to Extended Partition?
Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2015 11:41 pm
Good day.
I am considering purchasing BIBM for a new build. I would prefer to use something else, preferably something that lives in Track 0 and does not use-up a partition, but nowadays only BIBM is maintained (there's plenty of alternatives to BootIt, but they are all 20 years old). Anyways, one of the plusses to BIBM is that there is this forum here :-)
So I have read the manual, and still have some questions :-(
First, can we install BM to an extended partition (more precisely, a sub-division of an extended partition)? Obviously running the product and trying it would tell me, but my new PC is not ready yet, and the manual doesn't say. I would prefer to install it on a primary, but none will be FAT32.
Second, the manual says that the boot drive which runs BIBM *must* be EMBR. I intend to limit to 4 primaries globally, so what exactly will converting to EMBR accomplish? As far as I know, EMBR is just a custom partition table living somewhere else, and where 4 of the partitions in that table are copied over to the real MBR upon boot. Also as far as I understand, limiting to 4 primaries "disables" this, so what changes, when converting a drive to EMBR, if limit-to-4-primaries is enabled? Why convert to EMBR at all?
This leads me to my next question: If I limit to 4 primaries, can you absolutely guarantee me that the "custom" EMBR partition table will NOT be used and that BIBM will use the standard MBR instead? Because I intend to use other software to manipulate partitions (I prefer a GUI like Partition Magic to entering sizes and starting sectors manually) and if BIBM still uses its own tables (remember, we converted the boot drive to EMBR as required by BIBM) then this will all go to hell very quickly (as soon as BIBM writes over the standard MBR, picking partitions from its custom partition table, which did not get updated when I used Partition Magic to resize partitions etc, then it will all break).
Thank you.
Best Regards,
I am considering purchasing BIBM for a new build. I would prefer to use something else, preferably something that lives in Track 0 and does not use-up a partition, but nowadays only BIBM is maintained (there's plenty of alternatives to BootIt, but they are all 20 years old). Anyways, one of the plusses to BIBM is that there is this forum here :-)
So I have read the manual, and still have some questions :-(
First, can we install BM to an extended partition (more precisely, a sub-division of an extended partition)? Obviously running the product and trying it would tell me, but my new PC is not ready yet, and the manual doesn't say. I would prefer to install it on a primary, but none will be FAT32.
Second, the manual says that the boot drive which runs BIBM *must* be EMBR. I intend to limit to 4 primaries globally, so what exactly will converting to EMBR accomplish? As far as I know, EMBR is just a custom partition table living somewhere else, and where 4 of the partitions in that table are copied over to the real MBR upon boot. Also as far as I understand, limiting to 4 primaries "disables" this, so what changes, when converting a drive to EMBR, if limit-to-4-primaries is enabled? Why convert to EMBR at all?
This leads me to my next question: If I limit to 4 primaries, can you absolutely guarantee me that the "custom" EMBR partition table will NOT be used and that BIBM will use the standard MBR instead? Because I intend to use other software to manipulate partitions (I prefer a GUI like Partition Magic to entering sizes and starting sectors manually) and if BIBM still uses its own tables (remember, we converted the boot drive to EMBR as required by BIBM) then this will all go to hell very quickly (as soon as BIBM writes over the standard MBR, picking partitions from its custom partition table, which did not get updated when I used Partition Magic to resize partitions etc, then it will all break).
Thank you.
Best Regards,