When I set up the laptop, I made small partitions to try each of the release versions (32 & 64) as well as the x64 daily build and a 4th larger partition to hold data accessible from all 3. I also left Windows, but shrank its partition with gparted.
The release versions do not work well, so I didn’t actually bother to install them on the disk.
So, I have only 1 bootable Haiku partition.
I’ve got the whole UEFI thing setup so it makes it into the Haiku bootloader, which then pauses every time until I select a disk and package state to use.
Is this pause a side-effect of having multiple Haiku-formatted partitions, even though the OS is only installed on 1 of them?
Is there anything I can do to make it startup without user intervention?
The GPT partition table uid/partition type of your Haiku partition is likely set incorrectly. Unfortunately I’m not sure if it’s possible to reset it using DriveSetup. You can at least see it by scrolling all the way to the right (it’s the very last column)
I wasn’t able to figure out how to get the Haiku port of gdisk to open the NVME disk’s GPT table, but I got gdisk on the gparted live CD image to change the partition types and now it boots without user intervention.
Whatever the OS you are using, you can’t modify a partition actually in use. So, indeed, it is impossible to change Haiku partition type on Haiku, unless the partition belongs to another disk.
Huh. I wasn’t testing on the boot partition, but I think I had the partition I was trying it on mounted at the time so it that could have been it. Thanks for pointing that out.
Why would that not be possible? The uid is just a field in the gpt header, the OS can write anything it wants to the disk.
Moving or resizing a partition would be risky, but changing the uid should be no problem. I will have a look at DriveSetup bugs after christmas (visiting my parents now, not the best place for such work)
In this case, it is not the uid that is wrong, it is partition type. Imagine that you change the type of your Haiku partition from bfs to fat. So, I think not allowing alteration on a mounted partition is more a question of safety than a technical issue. It might be possible but, if you do the system could be confused and on reboot the system not usable.
The same is true of any other partition, in use or not: if you set it to incorrect parameters, it will not be usable after that. And if you fix incorrect parameters, a previously unusable partition will be fixed.
There is no additional problem with the partition being in use here? It would be different if you change the partition data (reformatting, resizing, moving it elsewhere…). But changing the partition type shouldn’t be a problem.
