Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
advantages of this ship-of-theseus'd disk content being MBR: dd'ing the old ssd to the new one Just Works
disadvantages: this new ssd is 4TB. guess what the max size for an MBR partitioned disk is??? (it's less,,,,)
1 replies
Marius Gedminas
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari I had a 4 TB HDD that was factory formatted with an MBR partition table. I was surprised. I think it worked because it used 4 KB sectors instead of the usual 512 byte ones.
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Marius Gedminas)
@mgedmin oh god have i had less than ideal disk performance because the disk is still using 512B sectors oh no
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
followed the first four steps of https://askubuntu.com/a/1315273 to convert the MBR disk to GPT (windows's tool for this refuses to do it on a non-empty disk), let's see if this hosed the windows install; hoping startup repair can fix it
1 replies
Jernej Simončič �
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari You'll have to recreate the Windows bootloader if you used gdisk (Windows has a tool that can convert MBR to GPT which also automatically writes the new bootloader – it's called mbr2gpt, and you can run it from install media).
What you need to do:
- first make an EFI system partition (ESP) and format it to FAT32, it should be 100-300 MB in size; then boot any recent Windows install medium, and once it's booted press Shift+F10 – this will give you a command prompt.
- run
diskpart, typelis dis(which will list all disks in your machine), thensel dis X(replace X with your NVMe drive number);lis par(shows partitions),sel par X(replace X with ESP number),assign(assigns a drive letter to ESP, since it doesn't have it by default);lis vol(lists drive letters, you should now see which drive letter is your Windows partition, and which drive letter is ESP);exit(return to cmd.exe) - verify Windows partition drive letter with
dir Y: - finally write the Windows bootloader with
bcdboot Y:\windows /s Z: /f UEFI(Y: is your Windows partition, Z: is your ESP) - reboot with
wpeutil reboot, and Windows should now boot
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Jernej Simončič �)
@jernej__s that probably would've worked! but i'm doing my own weird thing now instead
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@jernej__s (i just saw it too late; i was trying to puzzle it out in the windows 8.1 install disk command prompt, but the fact my efi partition wasn't correctly formatted seemingly doomed me)
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
startup repair didn't fix it, i guess it was too cursed. i'm instead installing windows 8.1 with some product key i found online (my burned windows 10 dvd has rotted but my windows 8.1 one is still good), since i know that'll create a usable gpt windows bootloader setup
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
disk partitioning and bootloaders are so goddamn arcane
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
installing windows 8.1 is so nostalgic, i miss when microsoft weren't evil
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
hello from the last good version of windows. i missed this so goddamn much. windows 8.1 was a strange creature but it had the prettiest desktop theme and windows 10 just threw it away ;_;
(only installed it to unfuck the boot setup, won't be actually using it except for funsies)
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
and hello again from windows 10! i did need to do a little manual fixing up from the windows 8.1 side; with its bootlader installed, i could go into the windows 8.1 recovery command prompt and do bootrec /rebuildbcd to make it find and add windows 10 to the boot list ^^
Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
as a "computers person" i do not know how to solve the problem correctly the first time, what i do have is an endless list of strange tactical maneuvers that might solve a problem and an ability to prioritise them
Kauzerei
(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari reminded me of a Taken-copypasta :3
