MBR and GPT weirdness

Yesterday I put my Insider Windows 10, Samsung 840 SSD into my External
bay to run and update it, But it did not boot up, instead I got a blue
screen which said it could not boot due to a missing or corrupt Windows
32\Winload file wit an 0CX000000e error. so I went into windows32 and
found the file and replaced it with a Known good copy from My Main C:\
Windows system, Well that didn't help so I did a lot of checking but
found nothing amiss.

My other 4 SSD Linux drives all booted OK in that bay, so I finaly
decided to reinstall Windows 10 Insider and see if that cured it.
But it would not install! it came with the error that it could not
install Windows insider because my SSD was a GPT Drive!!!

Sure enough, I checked it with Mini-tool partition wizard and ind it was
GPT. Now My 4 120 GB SSD's have always been MBR drives.
So using Gparted I set it back to MBR and then Windows 10 insider
installed and booted and ran as usual.

So my question is What in the world could have changed those settings
from MBR to GPT without me knowing???

Any Ideas?

Rene

On 2020-02-26 15:06, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Yesterday I put my Insider Windows 10, Samsung 840Â* SSD into my External
bay to run and update it, But it did not boot up, instead I got a blue
screen which said it could not boot due to a missing or corrupt Windows
32\Winload file wit an 0CX000000e error. so I went into windows32 and
found the file and replaced it with a Known good copy from My Main C:\
Windows system, Well that didn't help so I did a lot of checking but
found nothing amiss.

My other 4 SSD Linux drives all booted OK in that bay, so I finaly
decidedÂ* to reinstall Windows 10 Insider and see if that cured it.
But it would not install! it came with the error that it could not
install Windows insider because my SSD was a GPT Drive!!!

Sure enough, I checked it with Mini-tool partition wizard and ind it was
GPT. Now My 4 120 GB SSD's have always been MBR drives.
So using Gparted I set it back to MBR and then Windows 10 insider
installed and booted and ran as usual.

So my question is What in the world could have changed those settings
from MBR to GPT without me knowing???

Any Ideas?

Rene


Hi Rene,

Is your external drive bay SATA or USB?

Did you stick the drive back inside in its original
position and did it boot?

I typically start with a blank drive and just let the
Windows installer do its thing. I checked two on
my system and both boot drives are on MBR.

The drives I get are all blank. Was it a used drive?

And, converting from MBR to GPT is not an easy task,
so you definitely would have remembered doing it.

When I get a written on drive, I will erase it first to
keep Windows Installer from being confused:

# dd status=progress if=/dev/zero of=/dev/your_drive

In theory, it should not matter, but ...

Sorry I could not be of more help,
-T

On 2020-02-26 5:19 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 15:06, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Yesterday I put my Insider Windows 10, Samsung 840Â* SSD into my
External bay to run and update it, But it did not boot up, instead I
got a blue screen which said it could not boot due to a missing or
corrupt Windows 32\Winload file wit an 0CX000000e error. so I went
into windows32 and found the file and replaced it with a Known good
copy from My Main C:\ Windows system, Well that didn't help so I did a
lot of checking but found nothing amiss.

My other 4 SSD Linux drives all booted OK in that bay, so I finaly
decidedÂ* to reinstall Windows 10 Insider and see if that cured it.
But it would not install! it came with the error that it could not
install Windows insider because my SSD was a GPT Drive!!!

Sure enough, I checked it with Mini-tool partition wizard and ind it
was GPT. Now My 4 120 GB SSD's have always been MBR drives.
So using Gparted I set it back to MBR and then Windows 10 insider
installed and booted and ran as usual.

So my question is What in the world could have changed those settings
from MBR to GPT without me knowing???

Any Ideas?

Rene



Hi Rene,

Is your external drive bay SATA or USB?

It is a permanently wired Sata port


Did you stick the drive back inside in its original
position and did it boot?

Those SSD drives are always used in the external bay, and all the other
3 drives boot fine in that bay


I typically start with a blank drive and just let the
Windows installer do its thing.Â* I checked two on
my system and both boot drives are on MBR.

The drives I get are all blank.Â* Was it a used drive?

No these 4 drives are all purchased new


And, converting from MBR to GPT is not an easy task,
so you definitely would have remembered doing it.

Absolutely, I never did the foul deed.


When I get a written on drive, I will erase it first to
keep Windows Installer from being confused:

# dd status=progress if=/dev/zero of=/dev/your_drive

I tested the drive with Samsung Magician (it's a Samsung 840 drive) and
also with Crystal Disk info, both give it 100% good.


In theory, it should not matter, but ...

Sorry I could not be of more help



It's all working fine again, but leaves me perplexed.

Rene

On 2020-02-26 16:16, Rene Lamontagne wrote:


It's all working fine again, but leaves me perplexed.

Rene


Me too. Did you buy them from Flee Bay?

And I adore GPT too.

My base Fedora 31 partitions are all GPT
https://ibb.co/dMK9fhg

The Windows Virtual Machines all come out MBR.

On 2020-02-26 7:29 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 16:16, Rene Lamontagne wrote:


It's all working fine again, but leaves me perplexed.

Rene


Me too.Â* Did you buy them from Flee Bay?

No way, They are all new from Amazon and New-egg, I wouldn't buy
*anything* from E-bay or Kijiji.


And I adore GPT too.

My base Fedora 31 partitions are all GPT
https://ibb.co/dMK9fhg

The Windows Virtual Machines all come out MBR.

My main Windows 10 is on a 512 GB GPT NVMe drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive yet
refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I set it
back to MBR?

Rene

On 2020-02-26 17:49, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
MyÂ*mainÂ*WindowsÂ*10Â*isÂ*onÂ*aÂ*512Â*GBÂ*GPTÂ*NV MeÂ*drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive yet
refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I set it
backÂ*toÂ*MBR?

Did it work when you stuck it back in its original location?

On 2020-02-26 9:12 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 17:49, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
MyÂ*mainÂ*WindowsÂ*10Â*isÂ*onÂ*aÂ*512Â*GBÂ*GPTÂ*NV MeÂ*drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive
yet refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I
set it backÂ*toÂ*MBR?

Did it work when you stuck it back in its original location?


Yes, after I reset it to MBR.

Rene

On 2020-02-26 19:48, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 9:12 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 17:49, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
MyÂ*mainÂ*WindowsÂ*10Â*isÂ*onÂ*aÂ*512Â*GBÂ*GPTÂ*NV MeÂ*drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive
yet refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I
set it backÂ*toÂ*MBR?

Did it work when you stuck it back in its original location?


Yes, after I reset it to MBR.

I was hope you tested this before hand


Rene


Just a aside, have you considered making your base
system Fedora or similar and running your other OS'es
in qemu-kvm? It is nice to share the clipboard and
not have to constantly reboot.

On 2020-02-26 10:01 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 19:48, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 9:12 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 17:49, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
MyÂ*mainÂ*WindowsÂ*10Â*isÂ*onÂ*aÂ*512Â*GBÂ*GPTÂ*NV MeÂ*drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive
yet refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I
set it backÂ*toÂ*MBR?

Did it work when you stuck it back in its original location?


Yes, after I reset it to MBR.

I was hope you tested this before hand


Rene


Just a aside, have you considered making your base
system Fedora or similar and running your other OS'es
in qemu-kvm?Â* It is nice to share the clipboard and
not have to constantly reboot.


No, Windows is my OS of choice, I tried Fedora but it just didn't seem
to fit me, But I do use MXlinux and sometimes Mint which is OK but I
find MXLinux to be my favorite Linux distro, it just seems to suite my
way of working.

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 10:01 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 19:48, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 9:12 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 17:49, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
My main Windows 10 is on a 512 GB GPT NVMe drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive
yet refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I
set it back to MBR?

Did it work when you stuck it back in its original location?


Yes, after I reset it to MBR.

I was hope you tested this before hand


Rene


Just a aside, have you considered making your base
system Fedora or similar and running your other OS'es
in qemu-kvm? It is nice to share the clipboard and
not have to constantly reboot.


No, Windows is my OS of choice, I tried Fedora but it just didn't seem
to fit me, But I do use MXlinux and sometimes Mint which is OK but I
find MXLinux to be my favorite Linux distro, it just seems to suite my
way of working.

Rene


Does Minitools generate any logs when it works ?

There probably aren't a lot of tools that would
get away with doing GPT to MBR and back again.

The reason for this, is most partition tools like
the "Keep It Simple" scheme of commands. Software
writers don't like to do long complicated transforms,
as it's harder to prove the software is correct for it.

While Windows could do it (as a means to generate
one more partition), Windows has proved in the past
how it can live with MBR. It simply makes Extended/Logical
to spread the joy. It isn't necessary to transform to GPT
for its satisfaction. The first OS installer I noticed
that did this, was Win2K! They've been using Extended
for a while. They're willing to put the second C: drive
on a dual Win2K/Win2K setup on a Logical, and it boots OK.
Presumably the boot.ini on one disk, suits both partitions.

If I was sitting there puzzling over this, I'd be looking
for a logfile, as an admission of shenanigans.

It hardly seems a "spontaneous" choice to me. The only thing
I've got that might do it, is Acronis Disk Director, and even
then I've have my doubts it would get it right.

Paul

On 2/26/20 8:49 PM, this is what Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 7:29 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 16:16, Rene Lamontagne wrote:


It's all working fine again, but leaves me perplexed.

Rene


Me too.Â* Did you buy them from Flee Bay?

No way, They are all new from Amazon and New-egg, I wouldn't buy
*anything* from E-bay or Kijiji.


And I adore GPT too.

My base Fedora 31 partitions are all GPT
https://ibb.co/dMK9fhg

The Windows Virtual Machines all come out MBR.

My main Windows 10 is on a 512 GB GPT NVMe drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT drive yet
refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT till I set it
back to MBR?

Rene

I was going to add that my M2 drive the holds both my Windows and Linux
is GPT. Got the Windows 10 and laptop from Dell. They did the GPT, I
just added Linux.

Al

On 2020-02-26 11:29 p.m., Paul wrote:
Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 10:01 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 19:48, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
On 2020-02-26 9:12 p.m., T wrote:
On 2020-02-26 17:49, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
My main Windows 10 is on a 512 GB GPT NVMe drive,
So my next question is why did Windows 10 install on that GPT
drive yet refuses to install on my 120 GB Sata drive which was GPT
till I set it back to MBR?

Did it work when you stuck it back in its original location?


Yes, after I reset it to MBR.

I was hope you tested this before hand


Rene


Just a aside, have you considered making your base
system Fedora or similar and running your other OS'es
in qemu-kvm?Â* It is nice to share the clipboard and
not have to constantly reboot.


No, Windows is my OS of choice, I tried Fedora but it just didn't seem
to fit me, But I do use MXlinux and sometimes Mint which is OK but I
find MXLinux to be my favorite Linux distro, it just seems to suite my
way of working.

Rene


Does Minitools generate any logs when it works ?

Yes, log.txt, I searchde through it and find many references to that
drive but all it keeps repeating is it's CHS and that it s not a dynamic
drive, also alignmentFactor =Align to MB.
not knowing what else I should be looking for, I may be missing the most
important stuff, if you can give me any crumbs I can search it again.


There probably aren't a lot of tools that would
get away with doing GPT to MBR and back again.

The reason for this, is most partition tools like
the "Keep It Simple" scheme of commands. Software
writers don't like to do long complicated transforms,
as it's harder to prove the software is correct for it.

While Windows could do it (as a means to generate
one more partition), Windows has proved in the past
how it can live with MBR. It simply makes Extended/Logical
to spread the joy. It isn't necessary to transform to GPT
for its satisfaction. The first OS installer I noticed
that did this, was Win2K! They've been using Extended
for a while. They're willing to put the second C: drive
on a dual Win2K/Win2K setup on a Logical, and it boots OK.
Presumably the boot.ini on one disk, suits both partitions.

If I was sitting there puzzling over this, I'd be looking
for a logfile, as an admission of shenanigans.

It hardly seems a "spontaneous" choice to me. The only thing
I've got that might do it, is Acronis Disk Director, and even
then I've have my doubts it would get it right.

Â*Â* Paul

In my original post I said I used Gparted to reset it to MBR, this is
incorrect, I used Diskpart from an elevated command line.

Rene