| 1 |
>> The real problem is that while rEFIt/rEFInd, OSX and Linux have no |
| 2 |
>> problem dealing with a GPT partition table, Windows only supports MBR. |
| 3 |
>> (Windows 7+ supports GPT partition tables but it can only boot from a |
| 4 |
>> GPT disk in EFI mode. |
| 5 |
> |
| 6 |
> So, let us assume we have in the game: |
| 7 |
> |
| 8 |
> Windows 7 Ultimate Edition |
| 9 |
> Gentoo Linux |
| 10 |
> and Mac OSX (latest version) |
| 11 |
> |
| 12 |
> then we are all on the same side accessing the same partition table |
| 13 |
> type, no?! |
| 14 |
|
| 15 |
No. :) |
| 16 |
|
| 17 |
While Intel Macs are EFI platforms, they have an early and quirky |
| 18 |
implementation that cannot properly boot Windows in EFI mode, so you're |
| 19 |
stuck with booting in BIOS emulation mode, which in turn means that |
| 20 |
Windows will not use the GPT table. This is a really stupid Windows |
| 21 |
limitation, but we can't do anything about it. |
| 22 |
|
| 23 |
The Linux kernel can use GPT with no restrictions, however booting is |
| 24 |
another story. |
| 25 |
Booting directly from GPT requires a GPT-aware bootloader such as GRUB |
| 26 |
2. Alternatively you can use GRUB legacy, but you need an entry in the |
| 27 |
MBR for the boot partition. The root partition (and any other |
| 28 |
partitions) need not appear in the MBR, as they are mounted by the |
| 29 |
kernel. |
| 30 |
|
| 31 |
OSX uses GPT natively and does not need MBR entries for its |
| 32 |
partition(s). The only exception is if you want read-only access to an |
| 33 |
HFS+ partition in Windows through the driver provided by BootCamp; in |
| 34 |
that case you need to ensure that the first entry in the hybrid MBR |
| 35 |
covers the HFS+ partition you want to access. |
| 36 |
|
| 37 |
andrea |
Archives