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Questions tagged [mbr]

55 questions
23
votes
4 answers

Why are there only four primary partitions on an MBR disk?

I'm reading the docs over at CentOS.org. In section 25.1.2. Partitions: Turning One Drive Into Many, there is the following statement: The partition table is divided into four sections or four primary partitions. A primary partition is a partition…
Jongosi
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21
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2 answers

How do I convert my linux disk from MBR to GPT with UEFI?

I have a linux box (Ubuntu 16.04) whose boot disk is partitioned using MBR. How can I convert it to GPT+UEFI?
Chris Jones
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12
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2 answers

Bootrec /FIXBOOT vs Bootrec /FIXMBR

According to Microsoft here is what Bootrec /FIXBOOT does: "This option writes a new boot sector to the system partition by using a boot sector that's compatible with Windows Vista or Windows 7" And this is what Bootrec /FIXMBR does: "This option…
red888
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5
votes
2 answers

Installing GRUB on a VirtualBox guest - does it affect the host MBR?

I am in the process of installing the latest debian stable on VirtualBox (3.1.4), and got to an installation step asking to installing GRUB to the MBR of the disk. I assume that since this is a "virtual" disk created by VirtualBox, that the MBR for…
Matt
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4
votes
3 answers

how to get a linux image and restore it on another computer

I am trying to use dd command to accomplish complete restore of a linux image on a new computer. I have two partitions sda1(main) and sda2(extended), I took a backup of mbr image using: dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/sdb1/mbr_image bs=512 count=1 and dbr…
erin c
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3
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1 answer

mbr and boot sector overwritten with structured yet very odd data

I work for a web-hosting datacenter. One server was having issues with its RAID, and we were attempting to reboot into single-user mode to repair a read-only /tmp Upon rebooting, the server wouldn't come up, stating no boot disk. This seemed…
Mike H
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2
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1 answer

extend MBR disk with ext4 partition to over 2 TB on CentOS 7

I have a CentOS 7 machine with two disks mounted [ /dev/sda and /dev/sdb ] using ext4. I need to extend /dev/sdb1 to over 2 TB. I extended the disk from 2 TB to 2.5 TB (google cloud) After using fdisk to delete and recreate the partition, after the…
nelasx
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2
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1 answer

how to intentionally damage linux MBR (RHEL 7) on disk for test purpose?

I am running tests for MBR recovery on Red Hat Linux 7. I tried to intentionally erase the MBR with: dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=1 count=512 I can see with fdisk -l /dev/sda that the partition table is damaged but once I reboot, the system…
Kwakou
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2
votes
4 answers

Windows 7 update kills boot sector

I have a serious problem with a bunch of computers. They're all equiped with a ASUS P9X79 Pro Mainboard, running Windows 7 Ultimate and refuse to boot starting with one machine yesterday morning and 4 more today. All showing the same Symptom:…
Bouni
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2
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2 answers

Backup Entire USB Drive Containing Bootable Partitions in Debian

What's the best way to backup a USB drive with bootable data on it? For instance, I have what's called an ESXi server on a bootable USB, it's basically a linux variant with multiple partiions. What's the best way to back it up in case the original…
Ninjaxor
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2 answers

how to backup partition layout?

How I can backup(and restore) partition layout of the Disk along with file system types,UUIDs,labels,LVM partitions(Linux LVM) etc, plus with MBRs and VBRs etc but without actual files I want to later restore it somewhere else and have identical…
Microsoft Linux TM
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2
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1 answer

Windows 2012 BCD process to boot from replicated LUN for Boot from SAN

For our infrastructure we have a production site and a disaster site with SAN-based replication for the LUNs on the Windows servers. So for our proof of concept we have one server on the production site on one storage array whose boot disk is…
Hanne Winter
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2
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2 answers

Why I cannot initialize disk to MBR in server 2012 with the new Server Manager?

Why I cannot initialize disk to MBR in server 2012 with the new Server Manager ? just GPT is allowed?
Atom
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2
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3 answers

How to calculate the starting address of a partition from MBR

Given a MBR and the structure of MBR/partition table, how can you calculate the size and starting address of each partition? For clarification let's say I was given this- Answer: There are three partition table entries shown in the MBR. Partition…
에이바
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2
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2 answers

How do I keep a drive from booting accidently that used to be a bootable drive?

I used to have a RAID 0 setup but I ditched it and restarted from scratch with a plain non raid single disk system. The second disk is just used for general storage. Well today, I boot the machine and for whatever reason the BIOS booted from the…
Stu
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