Are hard disks on Thinkpads MBR or GPT?

Which series of Thinkpads have GPT disks and which have MBR? Also, how can one convert from one to the other (from GPT to MBR to support older operating systems, for example), considering that Thinkpads usually have only one hard drive?
Solved!
Go to Solution.

so, if i understand correctly. if laptop comes with preinstalled windows 7\8
there is no need to re-align the drive after installing windows xp (clean
install, repartitioned during windows xp installation, two or more)? i will be
getting a t530 with 2nd hard drive instead of an optical drive. i presume that drive
(along with the one in the main bay which has windows 8, iirc, preinstalled)
doesn't need re-alignment either? any info on re-aligning advanced formatted
drives is appreciated beause i've just realized that i have two 750gb advanced
format drives filled to the brim with data, that need re-alignment. one is a single
partition drive, the second one has two partitions. both were formatted within
windows xp (sp3) just like any other non-advanced format drive. and i have just
re-aligned the smaller (40gb) partition on the second drive (both drives are in
external usb enclosures) and it took like an hour, hour and a half to re-align a
measely 40gb partition (probably because it's filled with data). so i want to make
sure before installing (and formatting within) windows xp on t530 because pretty
soon they'll be filled with data (probably with data from my other drives because
re-aligning empty drives is way faster, afaik, than the ones filled).
any info would be much appreciated. thanks.
also, a funny thing. with my last 750gb drive (installed in a usb 3.0 enclosure, but
connected to a usb 2.0 port), full format in windows (xp, sp3) took about 40 minutes.
maybe even less. that was strange. usually it takes a lot longer. especially for larger
drives.
T530: i7-3630QM, 4 GB DDR3-1600, NVS 5400M, 2x 500GB 7200RPM, 9-cell, HD+ 1600x900, Backlit US, WinXP Pro
L430: i3-2370M, 4 GB DDR3-1600, HD 3000, 320GB 7200RPM, 6-cell, HD 1366 x 768, Win7 Home Premium 64-bit

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What type of hard disk should I use if I want to use it on mac and windows?

Hey Forum,
I am using windows xp on my macbook (snow leopard). I came across some dealers who say that there are hard disks for mac only and for both mac and windows. So, I wanted to buy a hard disk so that I can use it both on mac and windows xp, so what type of hard disk should I use? Must I partition into 2?
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HP Pavilion dv4t-1300 Hard Disk Upgrade

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Installation of new Hard Drive of Thinkpad X41

I know How to put the hard drive in its slot of thinkpad X41, But how to reload the OS and the drivers and the thinkvantage software. I think, this is not available in the fresh hard disk. I have given the recovery CD set (6 numbers) by IBM. I do not know, which one is the XP OS CD or the recovery DCS can install the OS also besides the drivers.
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Thanks for the response. Well, I have DVD ROM drive in the ultra bay. So, I have to change the booting sequence using access IBM button and put the CD sent by IBM as instructed by the system? Will it work and install OS, driver and thinkvantage with partition?
Please help or let me know, If I need a multi burner drive for this?
Message Edited by sarangi08 on 09-16-2008 09:48 AM

External Hard Disk Error - Error filesystem verify or repair failed

Hi
I can't seem to mount my WD external hard disk. Run Disk Utility and these are the error messages:
Invalid node structure
Invalid node structure
Catalog file entry not found for extent
Volume check failed
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_These are are hard disk specs:_
Manufacturer: WD
Model: 0x1103
GUID: 0x90A90464263DC1
Maximum Speed: Up to 800 Mb/sec
Connection Speed: Up to 400 Mb/sec
Sub-units:
My Book Unit:
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Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x1028
Product Revision Level: 1028
Sub-units:
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Capacity: 931.51 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk1
Mac OS 9 Drivers: No
Partition Map Type: APM (Apple Partition Map)
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported
My Book Device Unit:
Unit Software Version: 0x10483
Unit Spec ID: 0x609E
Firmware Revision: 0x1028
Product Revision Level:
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You will need Disk Warrior to fix the problem if Disk Utility cannot. However, to fix with DU you need to do this:
Repairing the Hard Drive and Permissions
Boot from your OS X Installer disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger, Leopard or Snow Leopard.) After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the installer. Now restart normally.
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Boot partition on GPT USB. Other Partitions on MBR Hard Disk.Possible?

Hi all,
I have successfully installed Arch on my 8GB USB with a GPT. I didn t want to harm my HD with Windows initially. My HD is MBR.
I was wondering if it was possible to move the Home and Root partitions into the HD on specifically ext4 partitions, of course, while keeping the Boot partition on the USB. Is it harmless or risky, given that USB is GPT while HD is MBR?
I wanted to do that to avoid dual-boot. Since other users are mostly using my computer with Windows, I wanted to use the USB as a sort of "magic key". No security needs, just I didn-t want to bother with dual boot the users that are using the pc most of the time.
Can I just do that with dd? Is it harmless having Boot partition on GPT disk while the rest on another MBR Hard Disk?
Thanks.

nomorewindows wrote:
Nukles wrote:
Many thanks for your answer!
To copy the partition can I use dd ? Because I read in another post that one must be very careful when using dd - or is it to be careful for specific dd usages?
Thanks.
Given that they are different disks, and how everything gets rearranged from one disk to another, I would just mount the disks involved and copy them over with cp/mv. There's not really any point in exact disk duplication here.
Linux doesn't care whether the partition table is MBR or GPT it operates as it should. I converted from MBR to GPT in place using gdisk. Linux didn't have to rename anything. GPT is viable if Windows is not a problem. So leaving Windows alone is probably the easiest with your travel media. Why you would leave your /home and other directories to the availability to others when you already have a travel drive, might pose an unneeded situation for you. Although the travel drive will wear out quicker.
Hi,
I tried today with cp, but I have run into issues...
I have /, /boot and /home in three different partitions in the USB. I want to move / and /home into the HD into specifically created partitions, formatted with ext4.
I mounted sda8 and sda9 (my partitions on the HD for the new / and /home) into /mnt/root and /mnt/home.
Doing
cp -a /home /mnt/home
did not make any issues...
Issues started when I made
cp -a / /mnt/root
. In fact the destination partition unexpectedly filled out completely, despite being so much bigger than the source partition.
Then I realized that something (do not know yet what) had mounted my 500 GB external HD into /media/run/HD500GB so cp was copying the contents of that into the new root partition...!!! Although there is no mention of that in the /etc/fstab.
Why does it do that? If the file system of my external 500GB HD is in another partition, how come does cp copy that content, coming from the root partition, into the destination?
By the way, I unmounted the 500GB HD, and performed the command again, but... after a while it says
cp: cannot stat `/run/user/1000/gvfs`: Permission denied
Actually the first time I ran the command it stopped after a while complaining that some file systems he failed to extend due to lack of permissions... The size though was almost the same of the original partition. The directories of the new root partition were however not the same.
In the original root I had
bin boot dev etc home lib lib64 lost+fount mnt opt proc root run sbin srv sys tmp usr var
On the destination root I had
etc lib lost+found opt run sbin sys tmp usr
So my questions would be:
- Why you think the command didn t perform correctly? (I ran it after doing su - root)
- Why did it copy also the file systems residing in other partitions?
- If it copies also things in other partitions, then if I copy root, it will also copy the entire /home filesystem into the new root directory, although I had copied that already into another partition...
Can you help me?
Thanks a lot!

Dual Boot Windows 7 with preinstalled Windows 8 on GPT-formatted hard disk and UEFI BIOS.

Question for Jordon Wees,
Hi,
You wrote: I can successfully install both operating
systems in UEFI mode, with Windows 7 on the first partition and Windows 8 on
the second partition. <o:p></o:p>
But I couldn´t!<o:p></o:p>
Could you please provide me how to install Windows 7
64 bit on a PC that already has Windows 8 64 bit preinstalled?<o:p></o:p>
I have also a GPT-formatted hard disk with UEFI BIOS
but I get the error message that windows can´t install Windows 7 on the disk
because it is a GPT-formatted hard disk.<o:p></o:p>
I don´t understand this because it is a GPT-formatted
hard disk with Windows 8 on it!<o:p></o:p>
I can´t change the hard disk to MBR format because I
will lose Widows 8 and all other partitions.<o:p></o:p>
In the BIOS for the storage dives Boot´ option I
selected the: only UEFI, I could also select the option ´first UEFI´ but it doesn´t
change the failure of installing Windows 7.<o:p></o:p>
Thanks, Sia

If I am reading your issue correctly. Windows 8 came pre-installed on a computer with a hard disk setup as a GPT with UEFI configured.
If this is the case then the outcome you are experiencing is correct.
Windows 7 does not inherently have the ability to install into a GPT disk from the base installation.
The Windows 7 DVD is designed to install using BIOS mode.
Also note that Windows 7 x86 does not support UEFI mode.
These two articles below may help you.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744321(WS.10).aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2011/05/31/installing-windows-7-on-uefi-based-computer.aspx
Thanks
Sean
MCTS: Windows 7
MCITP: Windows 7 Enterprise Administration
MCSA: Windows 7

Windows cannot be installed to this disk 0. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI system, Windows can only be installed on GPT disks

Hi All,
I have been trying real hard to install Windows 8 on my Macbook Pro early 2011 model. I followed the instruction given by Bootcamp word to word, all things went very smoothly untill I was asked Windows Setup Instaled to selct the Hard drive. Here's the error:
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk 0. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI system, Windows can only be installed on GPT disks...."
Let me know guys what should I do?
Thanks,
Attiqe

You have started the Windows 8 installer in EFI mode, and you don't have to start in EFI mode on a Mac because your Mac emulates a BIOS and a MBR partition table in order to install Windows in non-EFI mode.
To start the Windows installer, hold the Option (Alt) key while your computer is starting and have a look at all the boot options you have. You should see two with a DVD above and they must be named "Windows" and "EFI Boot". Choose the option with "Windows" and follow the steps to install Windows. Note that you have to format the "BOOTCAMP" partition from the installer to be able to install Windows.
If you are trying to install Windows from a USB drive, note that your computer isn't compatible to do it

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, windows can only be installed to GPT disks." Error

Hey Im getting the following error when trying to install windows from a USB.
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, windows can only be installed to GPT disks."
I installed the windows 8 (64bit) iso using boot camp to a usb. I was able to do this after changing the info.plist to allow me to place the iso on the usb. After I make the partition and start the install, I get the above error. I formatted the partition in the installation but I keep getting this error. I've repreated the entire process but i keep getting this errror and the disk utility says my partition is a Windows NT File System (NTFS) so im not sure what's going on. If you can help me that would be greatly appreciated

I am having the same problem. Windows is trying to install. It identifies the various partitions but says that I cannot install Windows on the Boot Camp partition or any other. I select Drive options (advanced) and Format the Boot Camp drive, but it makes no difference.
This is the Windows error:
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer BIOS menu.
I am not sure what Csound1 is suggesting with that post above. There are some involved suggestions over here <https://discussions.apple.com/message/23548999#23548999> about using Disk Utility to delete the Boot Camp partition and create new ones - is that the idea?

Does Microsoft support disks which have been converted from MBR to GPT with third-party tools?

Before opening a ticket with Microsoft to get the official response, does Microsoft support disks which have been converted from MBR to GPT with third-party tools?
We have various disks on Windows Server 2008 R2 fileserver cluster that are all MBR with various mount points added to overcome the 2TB limitation on MBR disks. Due to the time involved in physically moving the 30Tb+ of data to GPT disks, I would
like to investigate the option of a lossless conversion tool. Does anybody have any experience of these in production environments that could comment?
Any advice and details of experiences would be really appreciated!
CRM Advisor

Hi,
Besed on my research, Microsoft supports a fileserver cluster if the disks have been converted from MBR to GPT using a third-party tool.
For more detailed information, please refer to the links below:
Convert MBR to GPT
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3007346f-cf7b-4089-9628-36d394da8240/convert-mbr-to-gpt
Change a Master Boot Record Disk into a GUID Partition Table Disk
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725671.aspx
Best Regards,
Mandy
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected]

Upgrading Hard Disk Drive of Lenovo THINKPAD T500 2055 ?

Hi there,
My personal laptop is Lenovo THINKPAD T500 2055, and its main specifications as follows:
- Intel Core 2 Duo processor T9400 (2.53GHz 1066MHz 6MBL2).
- 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM Memory Module 4 GB (2 x 4 GB) 1066MHz DDR31066/PC38500 DDR3 SDRAM SoDIMM Kingston
- ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 with 256MB.
- 160 GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm.
I really need to upgrade the Hard Disk Drive to a bigger size (500 GB, 7200 rpm). and, my major questions are as follows:
* Could you please advise me on which Hard Disk Drive (500 GB, 7200 rpm) should I buy for my T500 laptop?
For example, I found (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003NSBF32) But I have no idea what T500 supports and what it doesn't... Therefore, I need your help to guide me about this matter. In other words, How do you know if ABC-Hard Disk Drive fits with T500 and XYZ-Hard Disk Drive doesnt fit? What is the clue in knowing what T500 accepts?
My another question is:
* How easy is it to remove/replace Hard Disk Drive in Lenovo ThinkPad T500 ???
I already watched CRU Removals/Replacements on (http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/R61_T61/index.html), But the clip is for ThinkPad R61 and T61. So, Could you please help me how to handle it with T500 ?
I would greatly appreciate your inputs.
Thanks for your consideration of my request, and I very much look forward to hearing from you soon !
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi and welcome to the forum!
Any SATA drive that is 2.5'' wide and 9.5mm high will work in your T500. The drive you linked to meets the requirement and thus will work.
For removal and installation instructions, have a look here:- http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/migr-71568.html
Hope this helps.
Maliha (I don't work for lenovo)
ThinkPads:- T400[Win 7], T60[Win 7], IBM 240[Win XP]
IdeaPad: U350
Apple:- Macbook Air [Snow Leopard]
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Is there a way to merge Mail account A on my desktop with Mail account A on a separate hard disk? I lost all my old messages in July, but they are on the hard disk. Thanks!

Is there a way to merge Mail account A on my desktop with Mail account A from separate hard disks? I lost all my old messages (thousands of them) in July, but most of them are safe elsewhere. I'd really like to put them all in one place, though!
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My separate hard disk backup has old messages up to June 2012.
Most of the ones between June and July are on a MacBook Pro which I bought about that time.
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Many thanks!
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Well, your profile info says 10.4.11, and you are posting your question in the iMac (PPC) category. If you are running Snow Leopard, it must be a fairly recent Intel iMac.
In that case, you should definitely post your question here
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/mac_os_x_v10.6_snow_leopard
where other Snow Leopard users can see your question. Restate the problem, what error messages you get, and what you have tried already (for trouble-shooting).

I am a OS10.7.4 user. yesterday i bought a Lacie external hard disk but error message appear said " You cant open the applicant LaCie setup assistant because PowerPC applicants are no longer support". please help me how to connect my mac with Lacie??

i am a OS10.7.4 user. yesterday i bought a Lacie external hard disk but error message appear said " You cant open the applicant LaCie setup assistant because PowerPC applicants are no longer support". please help me how to connect my mac with Lacie??

You do not need the Setup Assistant; in fact, you do not need any software on an external hard drive. I have two LaCie's; I erased the drive as soon as I plugged it in. You will need to format it anyway because most hard drives come Windows formatted. So, if you only want to use it with the Mac, highlight it in Disk Utility and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format and the GUID Partition scheme under Options. While doing that, it will erase the drive (and get rid of the LaCie software) - once finished, your drive is ready to use for Time Machine or any other backup plans you have for it.

Disk Utility: for bad blocks on hard disks, are seven overwrites any more effective than a single pass of zeros?

In this topic I'm not interested in security or data remanence (for such things we can turn to e.g. Wilders Security Forums).
I'm interested solely in best practice approaches to dealing with bad blocks on hard disks.
I read potentially conflicting information. Examples:
… 7-way write (not just zero all, it does NOT do a reliable safe job mapping out bad blocks) …
— https://discussions.apple.com/message/8191915#8191915 (2008-09-29)
… In theory zero all might find weak or bad blocks but there are better tools …
— https://discussions.apple.com/message/11199777#11199777 (2010-03-09)
… substitution will happen on the first re-write with Zeroes. More passes just takes longer.
— https://discussions.apple.com/message/12414270#12414270 (2010-10-12)
For bad block purposes alone I can't imagine seven overwrites being any more effective than a single pass of zeros.
Please, can anyone elaborate?
Anecdotally, I did find that a Disk Utility single pass of zeros seemed to make good (good enough for a particular purpose) a disk that was previously unreliable (a disk drive that had been dropped).

@MrHoffman
As well pointed your answers are, you are not answering the original question, and regarding consumer device hard drives your answers are missleading.
Consumer device hard drives ONLY remap a bad sector on write. That means regardless how many spare capacity the drive has, it will NEVER remap the sector. That means you ALWAYS have a bad file containing a bad sector.
In other words YOU would throw away an otherwise fully functional drive. That might be reasonable in a big enterprise where it is cheaper to replace the drive and let the RAID system take care of it.
However on an iMac or MacBook (Pro) an ordinary user can not replace the drive himself, so on top of the drive costs he has to pay the repair bill (for a drive that likely STILL is in perfect shape, except for the one 'not yet' remaped bad block)
You simply miss the point that the drive can have still one million good reserve blocks, but will never remap the affected block in a particular email or particular song or particular calendar. So as soon as the file affected is READ the machine hangs, all other processes more or less hang at the same moment they try to perform I/O because the process trying to read the bad block is blocking in the kernal. This happens regardless how many free reserve blocks you have, as the bad block never gets reallocated, unless it is written to it. And your email program wont rewrite an email that is 4 years old for you ... because it is not programmed to realize a certain file needs to be rewritten to get rid of a bad block.
@Graham Perrin
You are similar stubborn in not realizing that your original question is awnsered.
A bad block gets remapped on write.
So obviously it happens at the first write.
How do you come to the strange idea that writing several times makes a difference? How do you come to the strange idea that the bytes you write make a difference? Suppose block 1234 is bad. And the blocks 100,000,000 to 100,000,999 are reserve blocks. When you write '********' to block 1234 the hard drive (firmware) will remap it to e.g. 100,000,101. All subsequent writes will go to the same NEW block. So why do you ask if doing it several times will 'improve' this? After all the awnsers here you should have realized: your question makes no sense as soon as you have understood how remapping works (is supposed to work). And no: it does not matter if you write a sequence od zeros, of '0's or of '1's or of 1s or of your social security number or just 'help me I'm hold prisoner in a software forum'.
I would try to find a software that finds which file is affected, then try to read the bad block until you in fact have read it (that works surprisngly often but may take any time from a few mins to hours) ... in other words you need a software that tries to read the file and copies it completely, so even the bad block is read (hopefully) successful. Then write the whole data to a new file and delete the old one (deleting will free the bad block and ar some later time something will be written there and cause a remap).
Writing zeros into the bad block basically only helps if you don't care that the affected file is corrupted afterwards. E.g. in case of a movie the player might crash after trying to display the affected area. E.g. if you know the affected file is a text file, it would make more sense to write a bunch of '-' signs, as they are readable while zero bytes are not (a text file is not supposed to contain zero bytes)
Hope that helped ;)

Are hard disks on Thinkpads MBR or GPT?

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