UPDATE: After the first boot using GPT and installing bootman, it appeared as if bootman had deleted the GUID partition table. The boot menu was there but no partitions were found. I booted into a Haiku USB key, and the drive appeared to be blank in DriveSetup, as in fresh from the factory with no partitions. A couple boots from the USB key later, I noticed the partitions on the SSD had reappeared and that I could indeed use the boot menu to boot the partition of my choice. This is a rather peculiar behavior.
I’m trying to use DriveSetup to partition an SSD. I would use GPT, but BootManager doesn’t seem to play nice with the partition table. The option to use Intel extended partitions is greyed out. Otherwise it would be my preference to extended partitions. Is my best bet to use something like gparted? I’d love to do this within Haiku. My main requirements are having more than 4 partitions and to use BootManager as my boot menu.
No idea why exactly you need GPT but regular MBR paritioning does support extended partitions… you shouldn’t need primary partitions for everything. Also GPT isn’t really needed unless your disk is > 2TB.
Pretty sure Haiku supports booting from logical (extended partitions), however it doens’t support booting from a second drive AFAIK only the one bootmanager is on.
I don’t need gpt. I’d actually prefer Intel extended partitions. However, as I mentioned, that option is greyed out. I’ve used it on other drives, so I don’t know why I don’t have the option now. Standard MBR won’t let me go past 4 partitions or add extended/logical partitions. The drive is only 250gb.
Yeah silly me. I get swayed by the extended partition option in initialize disk and forget that it the one in partition type is used under regular MBR initialization. The fact that Intel Extended Partition exists, albeit greyed out, under Disk->Initialize crosses a wire in my brain and makes me forget to look in partition type for it.
Yes, bootman in its current form cannot really work with GPT, because they use the same disk sectors, so installing bootman will erase the GPT header. You can still get it running because GPT has a backup at the end of the disk, but whenever the GPT is rewritten (renaming a partition, adding a new one, etc), bootman will be erased. You can use our classic MBR loader, or install some other boot manager (for example grub), that does not conflict with the GPT header.
The extended partitions cannot be created directly on a disk, but can be created inside a primary partition. This is a bit confusing and we should eventually migrate everything to GPT, which was created partly to solve that problem.
That isn’t the confusing bit for me. The confusing bit is seeing the Extended Intel Partition under Disk->Initialize greyed out. This has successfully tricked my mind into choosing GUID several times when I have wished to initialize a drive with more than four partitions. What’s worse, is I should know better. I initialized my first disk when JLG was still employed at Apple.
It wouldn’t be hiding completely if it were only removed from the Disk->Initialize menu, would it?
It seems to be perpetually greyed out there. It should still be an option in Partition Type when you go to create a partition, where it actually functions.