Shuffling & Keeping

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I have looked with great interest at the knowledgeability of individuals like Mark Wharton, so I hope if nothing else this provokes a stimulation of discussion and thinking.

I have recently purchased a HP Probook with the intention of dual booting OSX. Most HP laptops come in a standard MBR partitioning scheme with 4 primary partitions:

1. 300 MB System partition, NTFS formatted, recovery environment including the boot sector.
2. 674 GB Windows partition, NTFS formatted.
3. 21.5 GB Recovery partition, NTFS formatted.
4. 2 GB HP_TOOLS partition, FAT32 formatted.

The standard way of doing OSX is to have a bootloader which optionally wipes existing data, creates a leading GPT volume and allows for a follow-on MBR scheme (hybrid).

I would like to keep the current scheme, shrinking the second (Windows) partition, shuffling everything up (so that ideally the 300 MB system partition leads the MBR but is much later than the start of the drive (the case now). This would require a conversion to an extended format, and also retaining the recovery information presently in the System partition. The reason I wish to do this is Windows has an ability to access the Recovery partition, to reinstall programs as required. This ability will be lost if I overwrite the System partition.

So my cerebral questions boils down to:

(1) taking a simple case, would it be possible to convert a standard 4-primary partition to an extended partition (and 4 logical volumes within) - since if this cannot be done, the next question becomes irrelevant. I do not intend to move or resize the Recovery partition, but this may be an inadvertent casualty of changing partition structures.

(2) can anyone who is clever see a way that I could retain the information in the System partition, such that when a Windows recovery boot disk was used, this could be accessed? I can create a bootloader, it's just that the bootloader also then knows where to point to when Windows is not at the front of the disk.

I can easily clone and restore volumes and MBR with Acronis products (I have 6 of them), but the information I am seeking goes way beyond that.

Hoping someone is kind enough (and knowledgeable enough to help).

Thanks.

Dom, 01/20/2013 - 20:00
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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Boot files can be moved from the system partition to the Windows partition, and that partition eliminated.

Recovery partition also can be eliminated if you don't need it. It's useful only to restore the PC to its original factory state. Once you begin installing software and using the computer, such a restore is much less useful and much less appealing. So, it could be removed to free up the space and a partition position.

I removed my Dell Recovery partition and thus freed up almost 20 GB of disk space. But, first I used Dell's backup utility to create the Recovery image to a USB flash drive (you could also choose three DVD-R disks), which could be used restore to Dell factory state if I ever sold the PC. I also moved boot files from Recovery partition to the OS partition.

But, with ATI, the Dell Recovery disks aren't even necessary if you use ATI to create a pre-boot backup image. I also did that (belt and suspenders).

Dom, 01/20/2013 - 20:15
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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Thanks for your help, Tuttle. For anyone else in the same predicament, it turns out that a hybrid GPT used by OSX can have at most 4 partitions - one of which is the boot partition, so what I was seeking is really not doable. But I have learned a lot on the way to come to this simple conclusion!

Mar, 01/22/2013 - 22:28