TeraByte Unlimited

I am preparing to bare metal install Win 10 and Ubuntu to a new PC. From these OSes I also intend to run VMs.
Mobo has Intel Z390 chipset. Boot drive will be a Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe SSD, 500GB.

The machine will use UEFI booting from the M.2 NVMe drive and GPT partitioning for the boot drive and the main storage HDD.
HDDs with MBR/EMBR partitioning will be carried over from an old Pentium 4 box that will be retired.

I have some experience as a home user multi-booting with BootIt NG. BootIt BM seems to work in pretty much the same manner, and changing to it recently proceeded without difficulty. That is not to say I have mastered BIBM, but I can use it.

With UEFI booting and GPT partitions I’ve had to come to grips with new concepts. I’ve tried to get a handle on the use of BootIt UEFI by reading its manual. I still have some queries and I’m hoping I can get advice and guidance here that will help me get the system up and running without any major drama. Assistance given will be much appreciated.


1. Installing BIU
Booting the bare metal system to BIU from a USB flash drive, will I be able to create partitions and then install BIU to an EFI partition without having drivers for the SSD present on the bare system?

2. EFI system partition
The BIU manual recommends the EFI system partition has a minimum size of 400MB, larger if many OSes will be installed. Would 1GB provide enough capacity to install BIU and to fit more EFI boot files for future multi-booting expansion?

For multi-booting from one SSD as I plan this machine to mostly do, can all the OSes running from the drive (I will install them to separate GPT partitions) have their respective EFI boot files residing in a single EFI system partition? Or will separate UFI system partitions be needed for the EFI boot files of each OS installed to the SSD?
If it is possible to boot each OS from its own EFI system partition, is it beneficial to do so?

3. Preparing the SSD for Win 10
Example screenshots in the BIU manual show Win 10 installed to four GPT partitions:
000 + Recovery
001 + EFI system partition
002 + Microsoft reserved partition
003 Windows 10

In example Win 10 partition table screenshots seen elsewhere I have seen more partitions used by Windows than this.

How many partitions will I need to make to prepare for installing Win 10?
Is the partition arrangement above typical on computers purchased with Win 10 preinstalled? BIU manual calls for one NTFS partition for Win 10.

4. Preparing the SSD for Ubuntu
From the BIU manual, a minimum of a Linux Swap partition and a Linux Native partition will need to be made. I am open to suggestion for more elaborate partitioning strategies for the current Ubuntu release. Links to good articles on this topic would be useful.

5. Booting OS from MBR/EMBR drives
An MBR/EMBR HDD from my old system has Win XP installed to a partition.
I have read that Win XP cannot detect GPT drives.
Will BIU be able to boot Win XP from an MBR drive on the new system, or will I be limited to using MBR/EMBR drives for data only?

Will the mobo BIOS need to run in UEFI+legacy mode for MBR/EMBR drives to be used? Or will BIU permit their use if BIOS is running UEFI mode only?

My feeling is to try not to use legacy mode and go with the new. Another option is to copy the XP OS partition to a VM.

Radiogram,

Some general comments on BIU which should help...

In your UEFI firmware have Secure Boot enabled and CSM disabled. Install BIU to your blank Samsung 970 EVO. This will give you two partitions.

MSR 16 MiB
ESP 400 MiB

You don't need a larger ESP unless you plan to have more than 10 Microsoft OS. Each Microsoft OS adds about 26 MiB of data to the ESP. Each Linux OS adds about 4 MiB of data to the ESP.

Don't have more than one ESP in your computer. Than can lead to disaster with installing subsequent Microsoft OS. One ESP only.

To install your first Microsoft OS: boot BIU (already installed), create a NTFS partition for the OS (most likely Win10), boot Win10 media and install to the NTFS partition. Ignore any message about the partitions being in an incorrect order. A Recovery partition will be created. Reactivate BIU. BIU will create a Boot Item and you can edit the name.

To install your second Microsoft OS: boot BIU, create a NTFS partition for the OS (most likely Win10). Change the Partition Type of the first Win10 partition to BootIt Hidden. Boot Win10 media and install to the NTFS partition just created. Ignore any message about the partitions being in an incorrect order. Reactivate BIU. BIU will create a Boot Item and you can edit the name.

To install your Linux OS: boot BIU, create a Linux Native partition for the OS. You don't really need a Swap partition. Boot Linux media and install to the partition just created. For the Boot Loader, select the ESP. Reactivate BIU. BIU will create a Boot Item and you can edit the name.

You won't be able to boot WinXP.

Thank you, Brian.

Your reply has been very helpful in simplifying my thinking about the process of using BIU to commission my new system. A lot of what-ifs were neatly swept away.

The build and installation will be done with the assistance of my friendly neighbourhood computer technician/engineer. He is not familiar with TBI software tools. My preparation, including your contribution, gives me confidence to lead the multi-boot installation using BIU.

Once all the required parts have been delivered we will install the OSes. After that experience I'll report back to this thread.

Cheers,
Radiogram

Radiogram wrote:
> Will BIU be able to boot Win XP from an MBR drive on the new system, or
> will I be limited to using MBR/EMBR drives for data only?
>
> Will the mobo BIOS need to run in UEFI+legacy mode for MBR/EMBR drives to
> be used? Or will BIU permit their use if BIOS is running UEFI mode only?

I still use BIBM with EMBRs for my Windows 10 system (you are not compelled to use UEFI for Windows 10).

However, if you decide to use UEFI, I believe it is the case that you cannot use EMBR disks. If you want to move existing EMBR disks to your new system, you should boot BIBM (or BING) on your old system and convert those disks to MBR, before unplugging them and moving them to your new system. MBR disks are fine for use as data disks in a UEFI system, but you cannot boot from them.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

CyberSimian wrote:
>
> However, if you decide to use UEFI, I believe it is the case that you cannot use EMBR
> disks.

CyberSimian, I'm a UEFI fan but I haven't tried using EMBR disks. All my disks are GPT. I have a spare disk so I created an EMBR disk, created 5 partitions and put 4 of these into the MBR Details section of BIU. Win10 was then booted and the 4 partitions were present.

CyberSimian, Brian,

My old system has two MBR/EMBR HDDs.

The first is setup for multi-booting several iterations of WinXP. Initially created under BING but now running BIBM, primary partitions are not limited. The other HDD serves only as a data drive and is almost entirely occupied by an extended partition containing four volumes.

For a long time I have been using only one of the OS partitions on the boot drive. If under BIU I am forced to create a boot item in which only four of this drive's partitions are visible, that will work for me; actually I think one would do. From what both of you say it doesn't sound as if I will have any trouble accessing data on the old MBR storage drive to copy over to the new GPT storage HDD.

As for not being able to boot WinXP on the new system, I can live with that.

With respect to installing another iteration of Win10 on the new system, I was hoping to image the first installation and restore it to a separate partition(s). How would I create a new EFI Boot File in the ESP for the cloned Win10 to boot from?

Radiogram wrote:

> With respect to installing another iteration of Win10 on the new system, I
> was hoping to image the first installation and restore it to a separate
> partition(s). How would I create a new EFI Boot File in the ESP for the
> cloned Win10 to boot from?

Radiogram,

It is easier than that. In Part work select the Win10 partition, Copy, select Free Space, Paste. Put a tick in Add to Boot Menu, OK.

You can convert your old disks to GPT (in BIU) and all partitions will then be primary and visible in Win10.

Thanks again, Brian.

I'm quite looking forward to my forthcoming installation experience now. That copy operation sounds super convenient.

When converting my storage drive to GPT, BIU removes the extended partition and converts its volumes to standard primary partitions. Correct?

Radiogram wrote:
> Will BIU be able to boot Win XP from an MBR drive on the new system, or
> will I be limited to using MBR/EMBR drives for data only?

Even without BIU I don't expect a modern system with Z390 chipset to be capable of booting Windows XP.

Radiogram wrote:

>
> When converting my storage drive to GPT, BIU removes the extended partition
> and converts its volumes to standard primary partitions. Correct?

That's correct. Neat.

You can Hide partitions in GPT Details if necessary. Check GPT Details after the Win10 partition copy and make sure the non booting Win10 partition is hidden.