Converted to GPT with gdisk, lost ability to boot whole hard drive
I had a 4 TiB MBR disk with dual-boot Windows 7 Home Premium and Linux Mint on it. Just in case if this is important, I use GRUB2 (probably obvious considering I am using Linux Mint). I wanted to convert to GPT to make use of the other 2 TiB I needed, and also to install macOS. However, I only can BIOS boot (I don't have a UEFI motherboard, my BIOS is Lenovo 57CN30WW).
I used gdisk to do the conversion to save my data, but I did it on my existing Linux installation instead of from an external USB. It gave me a message that the conversion succeeded, but the kernel was still using the old partition table (I ignored this sadly)
I made sure that I made a BIOS Boot partition (1 MiB, with GParted) with no filesystem to install GRUB on, but then I forgot to install GRUB, thinking the MBR would migrate to the BIOS Boot partition. I rebooted, and to my dismay the computer didn't boot at all. I initially chrooted into my existing Linux installation from a Linux Mint Live USB and attempted to install GRUB from there. grub-install apparently succeeded but the disk still did not boot. After, I uninstalled and reinstalled GRUB and os-prober. This also worked, but GRUB didn't even boot the command line.
Is there a way to get around this and make the disk boot, preferably from GPT and without losing data? Or is there a way for me to convert back to MBR and be able to boot?
boot grub linux-mint gpt
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
add a comment |
I had a 4 TiB MBR disk with dual-boot Windows 7 Home Premium and Linux Mint on it. Just in case if this is important, I use GRUB2 (probably obvious considering I am using Linux Mint). I wanted to convert to GPT to make use of the other 2 TiB I needed, and also to install macOS. However, I only can BIOS boot (I don't have a UEFI motherboard, my BIOS is Lenovo 57CN30WW).
I used gdisk to do the conversion to save my data, but I did it on my existing Linux installation instead of from an external USB. It gave me a message that the conversion succeeded, but the kernel was still using the old partition table (I ignored this sadly)
I made sure that I made a BIOS Boot partition (1 MiB, with GParted) with no filesystem to install GRUB on, but then I forgot to install GRUB, thinking the MBR would migrate to the BIOS Boot partition. I rebooted, and to my dismay the computer didn't boot at all. I initially chrooted into my existing Linux installation from a Linux Mint Live USB and attempted to install GRUB from there. grub-install apparently succeeded but the disk still did not boot. After, I uninstalled and reinstalled GRUB and os-prober. This also worked, but GRUB didn't even boot the command line.
Is there a way to get around this and make the disk boot, preferably from GPT and without losing data? Or is there a way for me to convert back to MBR and be able to boot?
boot grub linux-mint gpt
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
add a comment |
I had a 4 TiB MBR disk with dual-boot Windows 7 Home Premium and Linux Mint on it. Just in case if this is important, I use GRUB2 (probably obvious considering I am using Linux Mint). I wanted to convert to GPT to make use of the other 2 TiB I needed, and also to install macOS. However, I only can BIOS boot (I don't have a UEFI motherboard, my BIOS is Lenovo 57CN30WW).
I used gdisk to do the conversion to save my data, but I did it on my existing Linux installation instead of from an external USB. It gave me a message that the conversion succeeded, but the kernel was still using the old partition table (I ignored this sadly)
I made sure that I made a BIOS Boot partition (1 MiB, with GParted) with no filesystem to install GRUB on, but then I forgot to install GRUB, thinking the MBR would migrate to the BIOS Boot partition. I rebooted, and to my dismay the computer didn't boot at all. I initially chrooted into my existing Linux installation from a Linux Mint Live USB and attempted to install GRUB from there. grub-install apparently succeeded but the disk still did not boot. After, I uninstalled and reinstalled GRUB and os-prober. This also worked, but GRUB didn't even boot the command line.
Is there a way to get around this and make the disk boot, preferably from GPT and without losing data? Or is there a way for me to convert back to MBR and be able to boot?
boot grub linux-mint gpt
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
I had a 4 TiB MBR disk with dual-boot Windows 7 Home Premium and Linux Mint on it. Just in case if this is important, I use GRUB2 (probably obvious considering I am using Linux Mint). I wanted to convert to GPT to make use of the other 2 TiB I needed, and also to install macOS. However, I only can BIOS boot (I don't have a UEFI motherboard, my BIOS is Lenovo 57CN30WW).
I used gdisk to do the conversion to save my data, but I did it on my existing Linux installation instead of from an external USB. It gave me a message that the conversion succeeded, but the kernel was still using the old partition table (I ignored this sadly)
I made sure that I made a BIOS Boot partition (1 MiB, with GParted) with no filesystem to install GRUB on, but then I forgot to install GRUB, thinking the MBR would migrate to the BIOS Boot partition. I rebooted, and to my dismay the computer didn't boot at all. I initially chrooted into my existing Linux installation from a Linux Mint Live USB and attempted to install GRUB from there. grub-install apparently succeeded but the disk still did not boot. After, I uninstalled and reinstalled GRUB and os-prober. This also worked, but GRUB didn't even boot the command line.
Is there a way to get around this and make the disk boot, preferably from GPT and without losing data? Or is there a way for me to convert back to MBR and be able to boot?
boot grub linux-mint gpt
boot grub linux-mint gpt
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
asked Dec 21 '18 at 0:52
Varun NarravulaVarun Narravula
396
396
add a comment |
add a comment |
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