1GDISK(8)                       GPT fdisk Manual                       GDISK(8)
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NAME

6       gdisk - Interactive GUID partition table (GPT) manipulator
7

SYNOPSIS

9       gdisk [ -l ] device
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11

DESCRIPTION

13       GPT  fdisk  (aka gdisk) is a text-mode menu-driven program for creation
14       and manipulation of partition tables. It will automatically convert  an
15       old-style  Master  Boot  Record  (MBR) partition table or BSD disklabel
16       stored without an MBR carrier partition to the  newer  Globally  Unique
17       Identifier  (GUID)  Partition  Table  (GPT) format, or will load a GUID
18       partition table. When used with the -l command-line option, the program
19       displays the current partition table and then exits.
20
21       GPT fdisk operates mainly on the GPT headers and partition tables; how‐
22       ever, it can and will generate a fresh protective MBR,  when  required.
23       (Any  boot loader code in the protective MBR will not be disturbed.) If
24       you've created an unusual protective MBR, such as a hybrid MBR  created
25       by  gptsync or gdisk's own hybrid MBR creation feature, this should not
26       be disturbed by most ordinary actions. Some advanced data recovery  op‐
27       tions  require  you to understand the distinctions between the main and
28       backup data, as well as between the GPT headers and the  partition  ta‐
29       bles.  For  information  on MBR vs. GPT, as well as GPT terminology and
30       structure, see the extended  gdisk  documentation  at  http://www.rods
31       books.com/gdisk/ or consult Wikipedia.
32
33       The  gdisk  program employs a user interface similar to that of Linux's
34       fdisk, but gdisk modifies GPT partitions. It also has the capability of
35       transforming MBR partitions or BSD disklabels into GPT partitions. Like
36       the original fdisk program, gdisk does not modify disk structures until
37       you  explicitly  write  them to disk, so if you make a mistake, you can
38       exit from the program with the 'q' option to leave your partitions  un‐
39       modified.
40
41       Ordinarily,  gdisk  operates  on disk device files, such as /dev/sda or
42       /dev/hda under Linux,  /dev/disk0  under  Mac  OS  X,  or  /dev/ad0  or
43       /dev/da0  under  FreeBSD.  The  program  can also operate on disk image
44       files, which can be either copies of whole disks (made with dd, for in‐
45       stance)  or  raw  disk images used by emulators such as QEMU or VMWare.
46       Note that only raw disk images are supported; gdisk cannot work on com‐
47       pressed or other advanced disk image formats.
48
49       The  MBR partitioning system uses a combination of cylinder/head/sector
50       (CHS) addressing and logical block  addressing  (LBA).  The  former  is
51       klunky  and limiting. GPT drops CHS addressing and uses 64-bit LBA mode
52       exclusively. Thus, GPT data structures, and  therefore  gdisk,  do  not
53       need  to  deal  with  CHS  geometries and all the problems they create.
54       Users of fdisk will note that gdisk lacks the options  and  limitations
55       associated with CHS geometries.
56
57       For best results, you should use an OS-specific partition table program
58       whenever possible. For example, you should make  Mac  OS  X  partitions
59       with  the  Mac  OS X Disk Utility program and Linux partitions with the
60       Linux gdisk or GNU Parted program.
61
62       Upon start, gdisk attempts to identify the partition type in use on the
63       disk.  If  it finds valid GPT data, gdisk will use it. If gdisk finds a
64       valid MBR or BSD disklabel but no GPT data, it will attempt to  convert
65       the  MBR or disklabel into GPT form. (BSD disklabels are likely to have
66       unusable first and/or final partitions because they  overlap  with  the
67       GPT  data structures, though.) GPT fdisk can identify, but not use data
68       in, Apple Partition Map (APM) disks, which are used on 680x0- and  Pow‐
69       erPC-based  Macintoshes.  Upon  exiting  with the 'w' option, gdisk re‐
70       places the MBR or disklabel with a GPT. This action is potentially dan‐
71       gerous! Your system may become unbootable, and partition type codes may
72       become corrupted if the disk uses unrecognized type codes.  Boot  prob‐
73       lems  are  particularly likely if you're multi-booting with any GPT-un‐
74       aware OS. If you mistakenly launch gdisk on an MBR disk, you can safely
75       exit the program without making any changes by using the 'q' option.
76
77       The  MBR-to-GPT conversion will leave at least one gap in the partition
78       numbering if the original MBR used logical partitions. These  gaps  are
79       harmless,  but  you  can eliminate them by using the 's' option, if you
80       like.  (Doing this may require you to update your /etc/fstab file.)
81
82       When creating a fresh partition table, certain considerations may be in
83       order:
84
85
86       *      For data (non-boot) disks, and for boot disks used on BIOS-based
87              computers with GRUB as the boot loader, partitions may  be  cre‐
88              ated in whatever order and in whatever sizes are desired.
89
90
91       *      Boot disks for EFI-based systems require an EFI System Partition
92              (gdisk internal code 0xEF00) formatted as FAT-32. I  recommended
93              making  this  partition  550  MiB. (Smaller ESPs are common, but
94              some EFIs have flaky FAT drivers that necessitate a larger  par‐
95              tition  for  reliable  operation.) Boot-related files are stored
96              here. (Note that GNU Parted identifies such partitions as having
97              the "boot flag" set.)
98
99
100       *      Some boot loaders for BIOS-based systems make use of a BIOS Boot
101              Partition (gdisk internal code 0xEF02), in which  the  secondary
102              boot  loader  is  stored,  possibly  without  the  benefit  of a
103              filesystem. (GRUB2 may optionally use such  a  partition.)  This
104              partition  can  typically be quite small (roughly 32 to 200 KiB,
105              although 1 MiB is more common in practice), but you should  con‐
106              sult your boot loader documentation for details.
107
108
109       *      If  Windows  is to boot from a GPT disk, a partition of type Mi‐
110              crosoft Reserved (gdisk internal code  0x0C01)  is  recommended.
111              This  partition  should  be about 128 MiB in size. It ordinarily
112              follows the EFI System Partition and  immediately  precedes  the
113              Windows  data  partitions. (Note that old versions of GNU Parted
114              create all FAT partitions as this type, which actually makes the
115              partition  unusable  for normal file storage in both Windows and
116              Mac OS X.)
117
118
119       *      Some OSes' GPT utilities create some blank space (typically  128
120              MiB)  after  each partition. The intent is to enable future disk
121              utilities to use this space. Such free space is not required  of
122              GPT  disks, but creating it may help in future disk maintenance.
123              You can use GPT fdisk's relative  partition  positioning  option
124              (specifying  the  starting  sector  as '+128M', for instance) to
125              simplify creating such gaps.
126
127

OPTIONS

129       -l     List the partition table for the specified device and  then  ex‐
130              its.
131
132       Most  interactions  with  gdisk  occur  with  its interactive text-mode
133       menus. Three menus exist: the main menu, the recovery &  transformation
134       menu,  and the experts' menu. The main menu provides the functions that
135       are most likely to be useful for typical partitioning  tasks,  such  as
136       creating and deleting partitions, changing partition type codes, and so
137       on. Specific functions are:
138
139
140       b      Save partition data to a backup file. You can back up your  cur‐
141              rent in-memory partition table to a disk file using this option.
142              The resulting file is a binary file consisting of the protective
143              MBR, the main GPT header, the backup GPT header, and one copy of
144              the partition table, in that order. Note that the backup  is  of
145              the current in-memory data structures, so if you launch the pro‐
146              gram, make changes, and then use this option,  the  backup  will
147              reflect  your  changes.  Note also that the restore option is on
148              the recovery & transformation menu; the backup option is on  the
149              main menu to encourage its use.
150
151
152
153       c      Change  the  GPT  name of a partition. This name is encoded as a
154              UTF-16 string, but proper entry and display of  anything  beyond
155              basic  ASCII  values  requires suitable locale and font support.
156              For the most part, Linux ignores the partition name, but it  may
157              be  important  in some OSes. GPT fdisk sets a default name based
158              on the partition type code. Note that the GPT partition name  is
159              different  from  the  filesystem  name,  which is encoded in the
160              filesystem's data structures.
161
162
163       d      Delete a partition. This action deletes the entry from the  par‐
164              tition  table  but  does not disturb the data within the sectors
165              originally allocated to the partition on the disk. If  a  corre‐
166              sponding hybrid MBR partition exists, gdisk deletes it, as well,
167              and expands any adjacent 0xEE (EFI GPT) MBR protective partition
168              to fill the new free space.
169
170
171       i      Show  detailed  partition  information.  The summary information
172              produced by the 'p' command necessarily omits many details, such
173              as  the  partition's  unique GUID and the translation of gdisk's
174              internal partition type code to a plain type name. The  'i'  op‐
175              tion displays this information for a single partition.
176
177
178       l      Display  a  summary of partition types. GPT uses a GUID to iden‐
179              tify partition types for particular OSes and purposes. For  ease
180              of  data entry, gdisk compresses these into two-byte (four-digit
181              hexadecimal) values that are related  to  their  equivalent  MBR
182              codes.  Specifically,  the MBR code is multiplied by hexadecimal
183              0x0100. For instance, the code for Linux swap space  in  MBR  is
184              0x82,  and  it's 0x8200 in gdisk. A one-to-one correspondence is
185              impossible, though. Most notably, the codes for all varieties of
186              FAT  and NTFS partition correspond to a single GPT code (entered
187              as 0x0700 in gdisk). Some OSes use a single MBR code but  employ
188              many  more  codes in GPT. For these, gdisk adds code numbers se‐
189              quentially, such as 0xa500 for a FreeBSD disklabel,  0xa501  for
190              FreeBSD  boot,  0xa502  for  FreeBSD  swap, and so on. Note that
191              these two-byte codes are unique to gdisk. The type code list may
192              optionally  be filtered by a search string; for instance, enter‐
193              ing linux shows only partition type codes with descriptions that
194              include the string Linux. This search is performed case-insensi‐
195              tively.
196
197
198       n      Create a new partition. This command is modeled after the equiv‐
199              alent fdisk option, although some differences exist. You enter a
200              partition number, starting sector, and an  ending  sector.  Both
201              start and end sectors can be specified in absolute terms as sec‐
202              tor numbers or as positions measured in kibibytes (K), mebibytes
203              (M),  gibibytes  (G),  tebibytes  (T), or pebibytes (P); for in‐
204              stance, 40M specifies a position 40MiB from  the  start  of  the
205              disk.  You can specify locations relative to the start or end of
206              the specified default range by preceding the number by a '+'  or
207              '-'  symbol, as in +2G to specify a point 2GiB after the default
208              start sector, or -200M to specify a point 200MiB before the last
209              available sector. Pressing the Enter key with no input specifies
210              the default value, which is the start of the  largest  available
211              block for the start sector and the end of the same block for the
212              end sector.
213
214
215       o      Clear out all partition data. This includes GPT header data, all
216              partition definitions, and the protective MBR. The sector align‐
217              ment is reset to the default (1 MiB, or 2048 sectors on  a  disk
218              with 512-byte sectors).
219
220
221       p      Display  basic  partition  summary data. This includes partition
222              numbers, starting and ending sector  numbers,  partition  sizes,
223              gdisk's  partition  types  codes, and partition names. For addi‐
224              tional information, use the 'i' command.
225
226
227       q      Quit from the program without saving your changes.  Use this op‐
228              tion  if  you  just  wanted to view information or if you make a
229              mistake and want to back out of all your changes.
230
231
232       r      Enter the recovery & transformation  menu.  This  menu  includes
233              emergency  recovery options (to fix damaged GPT data structures)
234              and options to transform to or from other partitioning  systems,
235              including creating hybrid MBRs.
236
237
238       s      Sort partition entries. GPT partition numbers need not match the
239              order of partitions on the disk. If you want them to match,  you
240              can use this option.  Note that some partitioning utilities sort
241              partitions whenever they make changes. Such changes will be  re‐
242              flected  in  your  device  filenames,  so  you  may need to edit
243              /etc/fstab if you use this option.
244
245
246       t      Change a single partition's type code. You enter the  type  code
247              using  a  two-byte hexadecimal number, as described earlier. You
248              may also enter a GUID  directly,  if  you  have  one  and  gdisk
249              doesn't know it.
250
251
252       v      Verify  disk. This option checks for a variety of problems, such
253              as incorrect CRCs and mismatched main and backup data. This  op‐
254              tion  does  not automatically correct most problems, though; for
255              that, you must use options  on  the  recovery  &  transformation
256              menu.  If no problems are found, this command displays a summary
257              of unallocated disk space.
258
259
260       w      Write data. Use this command to save your changes.
261
262
263       x      Enter the experts' menu. Using this option  provides  access  to
264              features you can use to get into even more trouble than the main
265              menu allows.
266
267       ?      Print the menu. Type this command  (or  any  other  unrecognized
268              command) to see a summary of available options.
269
270
271       The second gdisk menu is the recovery & transformation menu, which pro‐
272       vides access to data recovery  options  and  features  related  to  the
273       transformation  of  partitions between partitioning schemes (converting
274       BSD disklabels into GPT partitions or creating  hybrid  MBRs,  for  in‐
275       stance).   A  few  options  on this menu duplicate functionality on the
276       main menu, for the sake of convenience. The options on this menu are:
277
278
279       b      Rebuild GPT header from backup.  You  can  use  the  backup  GPT
280              header  to  rebuild  the  main GPT header with this option. It's
281              likely to be useful if your main GPT header was damaged  or  de‐
282              stroyed (say, by sloppy use of dd).
283
284
285       c      Load  backup  partition  table.  Ordinarily, gdisk uses only the
286              main partition table (although the backup's integrity is checked
287              when  you  launch  the program). If the main partition table has
288              been damaged, you can use this option to load  the  backup  from
289              disk  and  use  it instead. Note that this will almost certainly
290              produce no or strange partition entries if you've just converted
291              an  MBR disk to GPT format, since there will be no backup parti‐
292              tion table on disk.
293
294
295       d      Use main GPT header and  rebuild  the  backup.  This  option  is
296              likely to be useful if the backup GPT header has been damaged or
297              destroyed.
298
299
300       e      Load main partition table. This option reloads the  main  parti‐
301              tion  table  from  disk. It's only likely to be useful if you've
302              tried to use the backup partition table (via 'c')  but  it's  in
303              worse shape then the main partition table.
304
305
306       f      Load  MBR  and  build fresh GPT from it. Use this option if your
307              GPT is corrupt or conflicts with the MBR and you want to use the
308              MBR as the basis for a new set of GPT partitions.
309
310
311       g      Convert GPT into MBR and exit. This option converts as many par‐
312              titions as possible into MBR form, destroys the GPT data  struc‐
313              tures,  saves the new MBR, and exits.  Use this option if you've
314              tried GPT and find that MBR works better  for  you.   Note  that
315              this  function  generates  up  to four primary MBR partitions or
316              three primary partitions and as many logical partitions  as  can
317              be generated. Each logical partition requires at least one unal‐
318              located block immediately before its first block. Therefore,  it
319              may be possible to convert a maximum of four partitions on disks
320              with tightly-packed partitions; however, if free space  was  in‐
321              serted  between  partitions  when  they were created, and if the
322              disk is under 2 TiB in size, it should be  possible  to  convert
323              all the partitions to MBR form.  See also the 'h' option.
324
325
326       h      Create  a  hybrid  MBR.  This is an ugly workaround that enables
327              GPT-unaware OSes, or those that can't boot from a GPT  disk,  to
328              access up to three of the partitions on the disk by creating MBR
329              entries for them. Note that these hybrid MBR entries can  easily
330              go  out  of  sync  with  the  GPT entries, particularly when hy‐
331              brid-unaware GPT utilities are used to edit the disk.  Thus, you
332              may  need to re-create the hybrid MBR if you use such tools. Un‐
333              like the 'g' option, this option does not support converting any
334              partitions into MBR logical partitions.
335
336
337       i      Show detailed partition information. This option is identical to
338              the 'i' option on the main menu.
339
340
341       l      Load partition data from a backup file. This option is  the  re‐
342              verse  of  the  'b' option on the main menu. Note that restoring
343              partition data from anything but the original disk is not recom‐
344              mended.
345
346
347       m      Return  to  the  main  menu.  This  option  enables you to enter
348              main-menu commands.
349
350
351       o      Print protective MBR data. You can see a summary of the  protec‐
352              tive  MBR's  partitions with this option. This may enable you to
353              spot glaring problems or help identify the partitions in  a  hy‐
354              brid MBR.
355
356
357       p      Print  the  partition table. This option is identical to the 'p'
358              option in the main menu.
359
360
361       q      Quit without saving changes. This option is identical to the 'q'
362              option in the main menu.
363
364
365       t      Transform  BSD partitions into GPT partitions. This option works
366              on BSD disklabels held within GPT (or converted MBR) partitions.
367              Converted  partitions'  type codes are likely to need manual ad‐
368              justment. gdisk will attempt to convert BSD disklabels stored on
369              the  main  disk  when launched, but this conversion is likely to
370              produce first and/or last partitions that are unusable. The many
371              BSD variants means that the probability of gdisk being unable to
372              convert a BSD disklabel is high compared to  the  likelihood  of
373              problems with an MBR conversion.
374
375
376       v      Verify  disk.  This option is identical to the 'v' option in the
377              main menu.
378
379
380       w      Write table to disk and exit. This option is  identical  to  the
381              'w' option in the main menu.
382
383
384       x      Enter the experts' menu. This option is identical to the 'x' op‐
385              tion in the main menu.
386
387
388       ?      Print the menu. This option (or any unrecognized entry) displays
389              a summary of the menu options.
390
391
392       The  third gdisk menu is the experts' menu. This menu provides advanced
393       options that aren't closely related to recovery or  transformation  be‐
394       tween partitioning systems. Its options are:
395
396
397       a      Set  attributes. GPT provides a 64-bit attributes field that can
398              be used to set features for each partition. gdisk supports  four
399              attributes:  system partition, read-only, hidden, and do not au‐
400              tomount. You can set other attributes, but their numbers  aren't
401              translated  into anything useful. In practice, most OSes seem to
402              ignore these attributes.
403
404
405       b      Swap the byte order for the name  of  the  specified  partition.
406              Some  partitioning tools, including GPT fdisk 1.0.7 and earlier,
407              can write the partition name in the wrong byte order on  big-en‐
408              dian  computers,  such  as  the IBM s390 mainframes and PowerPC-
409              based Macs. This feature corrects this problem.
410
411
412       c      Change partition GUID. You can enter a custom unique GUID for  a
413              partition  using this option. (Note this refers to the GUID that
414              uniquely identifies a partition, not to its type code, which you
415              can change with the 't' main-menu option.) Ordinarily, gdisk as‐
416              signs this number randomly; however, you might  want  to  adjust
417              the number manually if you've wound up with the same GUID on two
418              partitions because of buggy GUID assignments (hopefully  not  in
419              gdisk) or sheer incredible coincidence.
420
421
422       d      Display  the  sector alignment value. See the description of the
423              'l' option for more details.
424
425
426       e      Move backup GPT data structures to the end of the disk. Use this
427              command  if  you've added disks to a RAID array, thus creating a
428              virtual disk with space that follows the backup GPT data  struc‐
429              tures.  This command moves the backup GPT data structures to the
430              end of the disk, where they belong.
431
432
433       f      Randomize the disk's GUID and all partitions' unique GUIDs  (but
434              not  their partition type code GUIDs). This function may be used
435              after cloning a disk with another utility in order to render all
436              GUIDs once again unique.
437
438
439       g      Change  disk GUID. Each disk has a unique GUID code, which gdisk
440              assigns randomly upon creation of the GPT data  structures.  You
441              can generate a fresh random GUID or enter one manually with this
442              option.
443
444
445       h      Recompute CHS values in protective or hybrid  MBR.  This  option
446              can  sometimes  help if a disk utility, OS, or BIOS doesn't like
447              the CHS values used by the partitions in the protective  or  hy‐
448              brid  MBR.  In  particular, the GPT specification requires a CHS
449              value of 0xFFFFFF for over-8GiB partitions, but  this  value  is
450              technically  illegal by the usual standards. Some BIOSes hang if
451              they encounter this value. This option  will  recompute  a  more
452              normal  CHS value -- 0xFEFFFF for over-8GiB partitions, enabling
453              these BIOSes to boot.
454
455
456       i      Show detailed partition information. This option is identical to
457              the 'i' option on the main menu.
458
459
460       j      Adjust  the  location of the main partition table. This value is
461              normally 2, but it may need to be increased in some cases,  such
462              as  when  a system-on-chip (SoC) is hard-coded to read boot code
463              from sector 2. I recommend against adjusting this  value  unless
464              doing so is absolutely necessary.
465
466
467       l      Change  the sector alignment value. Disks with more logical sec‐
468              tors per  physical  sectors  (such  as  modern  Advanced  Format
469              drives),  some  RAID  configurations,  and many SSD devices, can
470              suffer performance problems if partitions are not aligned  prop‐
471              erly for their internal data structures. On new disks, GPT fdisk
472              attempts to align partitions on 1 MiB  boundaries  (2048-sectors
473              on disks with 512-byte sectors) by default, which optimizes per‐
474              formance for all of these disk types. On pre-partitioned  disks,
475              GPT  fdisk attempts to identify the alignment value used on that
476              disk, but will set 8-sector alignment on disks larger  than  300
477              GB even if lesser alignment values are detected. In either case,
478              it can be changed by using this option.
479
480
481       m      Return to the main  menu.  This  option  enables  you  to  enter
482              main-menu commands.
483
484
485       n      Create a new protective MBR. Use this option if the current pro‐
486              tective MBR is damaged in a way that gdisk doesn't automatically
487              detect  and correct, or if you want to convert a hybrid MBR into
488              a "pure" GPT with a conventional protective MBR.
489
490
491       o      Print protective MBR data. You can see a summary of the  protec‐
492              tive  MBR's  partitions with this option. This may enable you to
493              spot glaring problems or help identify the partitions in  a  hy‐
494              brid MBR.
495
496
497       p      Print  the  partition table. This option is identical to the 'p'
498              option in the main menu.
499
500
501       q      Quit without saving changes. This option is identical to the 'q'
502              option in the main menu.
503
504
505       r      Enter  the recovery & transformations menu. This option is iden‐
506              tical to the 'r' option on the main menu.
507
508
509       s      Resize partition table. The default partition table size is  128
510              entries.   Officially,  sizes  of  less  than 16KB (128 entries,
511              given the normal entry size) are unsupported by the GPT specifi‐
512              cation;  however,  in  practice they seem to work, and can some‐
513              times be useful in converting MBR disks. Larger sizes also  work
514              fine.  OSes  may impose their own limits on the number of parti‐
515              tions, though.
516
517
518       t      Swap two partitions' entries in the partition table. One  parti‐
519              tion  may be empty. For instance, if partitions 1-4 are defined,
520              transposing 1 and 5 results in a table with partitions  numbered
521              from  2-5.  Transposing  partitions in this way has no effect on
522              their disk space allocation; it only alters their order  in  the
523              partition table.
524
525
526       u      Replicate  the  current  device's partition table on another de‐
527              vice. You will be prompted to type the  new  device's  filename.
528              After  the  write  operation completes, you can continue editing
529              the original device's partition table.  Note that the replicated
530              partition  table  is  an exact copy, including all GUIDs; if the
531              device should have its own unique GUIDs, you should  use  the  f
532              option on the new disk.
533
534
535       v      Verify  disk.  This option is identical to the 'v' option in the
536              main menu.
537
538
539       z      Zap (destroy) the GPT data structures and exit. Use this  option
540              if  you want to repartition a GPT disk using fdisk or some other
541              GPT-unaware program.  You'll be given the choice  of  preserving
542              the  existing  MBR,  in  case it's a hybrid MBR with salvageable
543              partitions or if you've already created new MBR  partitions  and
544              want to erase the remnants of your GPT partitions. If you've al‐
545              ready created new MBR partitions, it's conceivable that this op‐
546              tion  will  damage the first and/or last MBR partitions! Such an
547              event is unlikely, but could occur if your  new  MBR  partitions
548              overlap the old GPT data structures.
549
550
551       ?      Print the menu. This option (or any unrecognized entry) displays
552              a summary of the menu options.
553
554
555       In many cases, you can press the Enter key to select a  default  option
556       when entering data. When only one option is possible, gdisk usually by‐
557       passes the prompt entirely.
558
559

BUGS

561       Known bugs and limitations include:
562
563
564       *      The program compiles correctly only on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X,
565              and  Windows.  Linux versions for x86-64 (64-bit), x86 (32-bit),
566              and PowerPC (32-bit) have been tested, with the  x86-64  version
567              having  seen  the  most testing. Under FreeBSD, 32-bit (x86) and
568              64-bit (x86-64) versions have been tested. Only 32-bit  versions
569              for  Mac  OS  X  and Windows have been tested by the author, al‐
570              though I've heard of 64-bit  versions  being  successfully  com‐
571              piled.
572
573
574       *      The  FreeBSD  version  of the program can't write changes to the
575              partition table to a disk when existing partitions on that  disk
576              are  mounted.  (The  same problem exists with many other FreeBSD
577              utilities, such as gpt, fdisk, and dd.) This limitation  can  be
578              overcome  by  typing  sysctl  kern.geom.debugflags=16 at a shell
579              prompt.
580
581
582       *      The fields used to display the start and end sector numbers  for
583              partitions  in  the  'p'  command  are  14 characters wide. This
584              translates to a limitation of about 45 PiB. On larger disks, the
585              displayed columns will go out of alignment.
586
587
588       *      In  the  Windows version, only ASCII characters are supported in
589              the  partition  name  field.  If  an  existing  partition   uses
590              non-ASCII  UTF-16  characters, they're likely to be corrupted in
591              the 'i' and 'p' menu options' displays; however, they should  be
592              preserved  when  loading  and  saving  partitions.  Binaries for
593              Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X support full UTF-16 partition names.
594
595
596       *      The program can load only up to 128 partitions (4 primary parti‐
597              tions  and 124 logical partitions) when converting from MBR for‐
598              mat.  This  limit  can  be  raised  by  changing   the   #define
599              MAX_MBR_PARTS line in the basicmbr.h source code file and recom‐
600              piling;  however,  such  a   change   will   require   using   a
601              larger-than-normal partition table. (The limit of 128 partitions
602              was chosen because that number equals the  128  partitions  sup‐
603              ported by the most common partition table size.)
604
605
606       *      Converting  from  MBR format sometimes fails because of insuffi‐
607              cient space at the start or (more commonly) the end of the disk.
608              Resizing  the  partition  table (using the 's' option in the ex‐
609              perts' menu) can sometimes overcome this  problem;  however,  in
610              extreme  cases  it  may be necessary to resize a partition using
611              GNU Parted or a similar tool prior to conversion with gdisk.
612
613
614       *      MBR conversions work only if the disk has correct LBA  partition
615              descriptors.  These  descriptors  should  be present on any disk
616              over 8 GiB in size or on smaller disks partitioned with any  but
617              very ancient software.
618
619
620       *      BSD  disklabel  support  can create first and/or last partitions
621              that overlap with the GPT data structures. This can sometimes be
622              compensated  by  adjusting  the partition table size, but in ex‐
623              treme cases the affected partition(s) may need to be deleted.
624
625
626       *      Because of the highly variable nature of  BSD  disklabel  struc‐
627              tures,  conversions  from  this form may be unreliable -- parti‐
628              tions may be dropped, converted in a way that  creates  overlaps
629              with  other partitions, or converted with incorrect start or end
630              values. Use this feature with caution!
631
632
633       *      Booting after converting an MBR or BSD disklabel disk is  likely
634              to  be disrupted. Sometimes re-installing a boot loader will fix
635              the problem, but other times you may need to switch  boot  load‐
636              ers.  Except  on  EFI-based  platforms, Windows through at least
637              Windows 7 doesn't support booting from GPT disks. Creating a hy‐
638              brid  MBR (using the 'h' option on the recovery & transformation
639              menu) or abandoning GPT in favor of MBR may be your only options
640              in this case.
641
642

AUTHORS

644       Primary author: Roderick W. Smith (rodsmith@rodsbooks.com)
645
646       Contributors:
647
648       * Yves Blusseau (1otnwmz02@sneakemail.com)
649
650       * David Hubbard (david.c.hubbard@gmail.com)
651
652       * Justin Maggard (justin.maggard@netgear.com)
653
654       * Dwight Schauer (das@teegra.net)
655
656       * Florian Zumbiehl (florz@florz.de)
657
658
659

SEE ALSO

661       cfdisk(8),   cgdisk(8),   fdisk(8),   mkfs(8),   parted(8),  sfdisk(8),
662       sgdisk(8), fixparts(8).
663
664       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
665
666       http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2006/tn2166.html
667
668       http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/
669
670

AVAILABILITY

672       The gdisk command is part of the GPT fdisk  package  and  is  available
673       from Rod Smith.
674
675
676
677Roderick W. Smith                    1.0.8                            GDISK(8)
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