GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

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linus100
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GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

Post by linus100 »

I have host system running CentOS 6..3 with VirtualBox 4.1.18. All disks on this system have GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk labels. When I run VBoxManage internalcommands listpartitions -rawdisk /dev/sdc I get output that does not reflect actual partitions on the disk. Here is an example:

Number Type StartCHS EndCHS Size (MiB) Start (Sect)
1 0xee 0 /0 /1 1023/254/63 953869 1

That drive actually has three partitions on it plus free space. I have tried the listpartitions command on another system that uses DOS type partition tables, and it shows the partitions. I would like to create a raw disk vmdk on this system, but it appears that this version of VirtualBox does not support GPT disk labels. Is there something I am missing? If not, is there a plan/timeline on support for GPT labels?

Thanks for your help.
Linus
mpack
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Re: GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

Post by mpack »

As far as I know, VirtualBox only supports MBR disks.

As to future plans, the devteam usually don't discuss them.
ChipMcK
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Re: GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

Post by ChipMcK »

Is the disk connected via FireWire instead of USB?
linus100
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Re: GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

Post by linus100 »

ChipMcK wrote:Is the disk connected via FireWire instead of USB?
Neither of those. It is SATA.
nuttello
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Re: GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

Post by nuttello »

I'm also trying to get this to work on my end. Doing a list partitions on the rawdisk gives me this..

Number Type StartCHS EndCHS Size (MiB) Start (Sect)
1 0x00 0 /0 /0 0 /0 /0 200 2048
2 0x00 0 /0 /0 0 /0 /0 128 411648
3 0x00 0 /0 /0 0 /0 /0 55000 673792
4 0x00 0 /0 /0 0 /0 /0 200 113313792

Which looks like the only info listpartitions managed to get is the size and starting sectors.
Anything else regarding the physical information (cylinder/heads/sectors/partition type) is not showing up at all.

Maybe we might need to wait for an update.
linus100
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Re: GUID partition table supported with raw disk?

Post by linus100 »

Well... GPT doesn't use C/H/S addressing. If you look at what information is recorded in the partition record, it has starting sector and number of sectors, so this certainly looks more promising. The partition it used to show was the "Protective" partition, but now at least it appears to recognize it as a GPT label. At first glance, it appears to be showing accurate information on my disks. I'm using 4.2.6 r82870 now. Thanks for posting the update.
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