moving from fdisk to gparted?

pmam · Veteran Joined: 30 Dec 2013 Posts: 1145

At the moment I have a disk that was partitioned by fdisk with extended partition -
Now I want to re-install Gentoo, but using gparted -
can I remove all Gentoo's and extended partitions (and leave WIN7 partitions),
and create new patitions with gparted?
BTW: If use GPT, instead of MBR - It will work with windows multi boot?
It will work with WIN CD installation? -
My laptop has an access problem with WIN CD, so I thought it may has to do to GPT...
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Fitzcarraldo · Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:47 pm Post subject:

Yes, you can use GParted to delete the partitions (primary and extended) you created with fdisk, and you can use GParted to create (and format, if you want) new partitions (primary and extended) whilst leaving any other partitions (Windows partitions, for example) alone. You can see a summary of the capabilities of GParted on the Features page of the GParted Web site: http://gparted.org/features.php

GParted supports GPT, although I have not used it with a GPT drive myself.

I usually use GParted on the latest edition of SystemRescueCd, although GParted produces a Live CD/USB too: http://gparted.org/livecd.php
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Atmmac · Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:40 pm Post subject:

You can use any partitioning tool you want. it does not matter which tool initially set up your partitions. My recommendation for you at this point would be to use a GPARTED live cd to boot into and redo your partitioning scheme. This will give you the gui interface you are most likely looking for. Then you can go ahead and reinstall gentoo. Keep in mind that you will have to reinstall to get GRUB back so you can boot into Windows. Other option is to do an MBR rebuild in windows so you can boot directly into windows. Only do this if you are not planning on putting linux back on your system.

pmam · Veteran Joined: 30 Dec 2013 Posts: 1145

Atmmac Hi,

Atmmac · Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:19 pm Post subject:

I was just saying when you delete your partitions containing gentoo most likely you will delete the bootloader as well. I dont have a lot of experience with grub2 and windows. I haven't dual booted in a long time. In grub legacy it was pretty easy as you could modify your grub.conf to point to your windows partition. did you run a grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and see if it picks it up? If it doesn't work you could try manually editing your grub.conf and see if that resolves it. As far as deleting partitions that will remove data. Are you sure you did it correctly?

Fitzcarraldo · Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:51 pm Post subject:

You might want to give EasyBCD a try. It works with UEFI and GPT drives these days and allows the user to set up dual booting between Windows and Linux by editing the Windows BCD so that the Windows Boot Manager chainloads GRUB Legacy or GRUB 2. Have a look at https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/ for details.
_________________
Clevo W230SS: amd64, VIDEO_CARDS="intel modesetting nvidia".
Compal NBLB2: ~amd64, xf86-video-ati. Dual boot Win 7 Pro 64-bit.
OpenRC systemd-utils[udev] elogind KDE on both.
My blog