1
After I installed mac lion I have a 200mb partition in front of my main install. It's says it's a GPT (Protective Partition). I would really like to get rid of this. I hate having my disk partitioned at all.
If I boot to a linux live and just wipe it will it mess up my mac install?
Thanks for the help!
3
This partition exists so that legacy BIOS and operating systems not supporting GUID Partition Table (GPT) are not confused by the GPT used on the hard drive and is required for the system to boot. GPT is significantly different from the Master Boot Record (MBR) used in most older systems and can confuse the BIOS or operating system without this protective partition.
For more details, see this Wikipedia article.
bwDraco
Posted 2012-06-26T04:52:41.700
Reputation: 41 701
What if I select the partition I wold like to boot from manually on startup every time I boot. Then could I delete it? – None – 2012-06-26T05:11:47.247
@KeeganMcCarthy: This has nothing to do with selecting the partition to boot from. The system expects this partition to exist, so you should not delete the partition. – bwDraco – 2012-06-26T05:13:55.950
Also, I've heard that some species of OSX keep maintenance/pre-boot utilities there. Getting rid of it is a bad idea. Besides, even if you "hate having your disk partitioned at all", it's still partitioned if you have just one main OS partition: the partition table is still the same size, there's still an area before the first partition that contains the bootloader, etc etc. There's really not much different, and quite a lot can (and, as @DragonLord says, probably will) go wrong if you delete the extra partition. – Zac B – 2012-06-26T19:17:12.247