1 Topic by tb75252

  • tb75252
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Topic: Guide For HDD Installed On UEFI-Enabled Motherboard

First of all, let me make it clear that I am not great computer expert...

I am planning on purchasing a new PC motherboard which will come with the UEFI interface instead of the BIOS one.  (They probably all do by now...)

I would like to use GParted Live on a brand-new, virgin HDD and create a GPT table, a UEFI partition, and other partitions for installing Linux OSs.  Please note that the HDD is virgin and therefore does not (and will not) have MS Windows 8 installed on it, thus no GPT table or UEFI partition will already exist on it.

Is there a detailed GParted Live guide that I can use for this task?  I could not find anything about creating UEFI partitions in the GParted Manual and only passing references to the GPT table.

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Guide For HDD Installed On UEFI-Enabled Motherboard

I am not aware of any detailed guide for the task you described.  First you would create a GUID Partition Table (GPT) on the drive.  Then since UEFI understands FAT32 you could format the UEFI boot partition as FAT32.  After that you can set up your other partitions for GNU/Linux or another operating system as you see fit.

3 Reply by tb75252

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Re: Guide For HDD Installed On UEFI-Enabled Motherboard

In the meantime I've done some Googling around and found this guide:  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1958383

What do the experts think of the guide I found?  Could this guide maybe be integrated into the GParted manual?

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Guide For HDD Installed On UEFI-Enabled Motherboard

Thank you for reporting back with the guide you found.

From reading the guide I can see that (1) a GPT partition table is required, and (2) to work with Windows and GNU/Linux the UEFI partition should be formatted as FAT32.

Is there anything else that I missed?

It might help if you report back with the set of steps that you used or will use.

5 Reply by tb75252

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Re: Guide For HDD Installed On UEFI-Enabled Motherboard

gedakc wrote:

Thank you for reporting back with the guide you found.

From reading the guide I can see that (1) a GPT partition table is required, and (2) to work with Windows and GNU/Linux the UEFI partition should be formatted as FAT32.

Is there anything else that I missed?

It might help if you report back with the set of steps that you used or will use.

I actually have not done anything with GParted Live as I have not yet purchased a motherboard that comes with UEFI.  Being that I am totally inexperienced with GPT/UEFI I was hoping that somebody would point me to the ultimate guide for partitioning a HDD (possibly using GParted Live) when the motherboard supports UEFI.
Certainly there are people out there who have a UEFI motherboard and have done their own partitioning, so maybe some guru will read this thread and give good guidance...

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Guide For HDD Installed On UEFI-Enabled Motherboard

If/when you do set up GPT/UEFI booting, please do report back with what worked for you.  Even if it isn't a definitive document, sharing your experience will help others.  :-)