Hello!
I have a laptop which had installed Windows 8 on it with partition system mbr. The partition system was converted to gpt and Linux was installed on it.
Now, since the files with the Windows installation remained, I want to try to boot Windows on GPT with any bootloader, I don't have any preference.
What should be the steps required?
Now I should give some details about the partition structure:
florin@florin ~/Desktop> sudo gdisk -l /dev/sda [sudo] password for florin: GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.1 Partition table scan: MBR: protective BSD: not present APM: not present GPT: present Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT. Disk /dev/sda: 488397168 sectors, 232.9 GiB Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): 62554626-B9D6-4CB7-BDAD-655D0E2906BF Partition table holds up to 128 entries First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 488397134 Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries Total free space is 5362 sectors (2.6 MiB) Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 2048 4061 1007.0 KiB EF02 2 4096 134220892 64.0 GiB 8300 root 3 140236800 488394751 166.0 GiB 0700 Microsoft basic data 4 134221824 140236799 2.9 GiB 8200 swap
And yes, there are a few "gaps" in the partition systems from when I partitioned and this can be seen by examining the offsets.
With EF02 small partition I thought I should recreate somehow the boot/bcd files or the hybrid image required to boot windows on gpt, but it might require a bigger size. Will check to boot with a usb first if the later size reason applies.
Also, here I have a dd-like image with what was the initial System partition, which I mistakenly overwritten when installing Linux because it was at the beginning of the disk.
Practically, the original partitions were like ~300 mb System | ~60 GB | ~160 GB C:\ (Stuff)
Original System image:
florin@florin ~/Desktop> file image_sda1 image_sda1: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x52+2, OEM-ID "NTFS ", sectors/cluster 8, Media descriptor 0xf8, sectors/track 63, heads 255, hidden sectors 2048, dos < 4.0 BootSector (0x80), FAT (1Y bit by descriptor); NTFS, sectors/track 63, sectors 716799, $MFT start cluster 29866, $MFTMirror start cluster 2, bytes/RecordSegment 2^(-1*246), clusters/index block 1, serial number 0dcc220d2c220b2a6
florin@florin /mnt/image> ls -la total 1789 drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Jan 25 2015 . drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Aug 4 14:46 .. drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8192 Jan 25 2015 Boot -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 405466 Oct 9 2014 bootmgr -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 398158 Sep 20 2012 bootmgr.{4c9116fa-3cdd-47f9-9891-1a09a3557cfa} -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 405466 Oct 9 2014 bootmgr.{54cad42b-42e2-4004-afd2-8c95b681b5b9} -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Nov 4 2014 BOOTNXT -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8192 Jan 24 2015 BOOTSECT.BAK -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 280911 Jan 17 2014 grldr drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 20 2013 Recovery drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 10 2014 $RECYCLE.BIN drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Oct 10 2014 System Volume Information
Existing Windows Partition on disk:
florin@florin /mnt/mount> ls -la total 2587041 drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8192 Aug 26 01:26 . drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Aug 4 14:46 .. -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1 Jun 18 2013 BOOTNXT lrwxrwxrwx 2 root root 60 Aug 22 2013 Documents and Settings -> /mnt/mount/Users drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Jan 23 2015 Downloads drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Jul 15 2015 HaspEmulPE.XP -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1709109248 Jul 12 2015 hiberfil.sys -rwxrwxrwx 2 root root 618 Feb 9 2015 NetworkCfg.xml -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 671088640 Jul 12 2015 pagefile.sys drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Aug 22 2013 PerfLogs drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Feb 6 2015 ProgramData drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Feb 6 2015 Program Files drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Feb 9 2015 Program Files (x86) drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jan 20 2015 Recovery drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jan 12 2015 $Recycle.Bin -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 268435456 Jul 12 2015 swapfile.sys drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Apr 7 2015 System Volume Information drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Jan 12 2015 Users drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 24576 Apr 7 2015 Windows
Thank you!