-1

I am a Linux guy for years. My wife, on the other hand, is a Windows person. Two months ago her W10PRO seemed sluggish. In the end her ssd (480Gb) was questionable. So I did a Clonezilla backup image. Found a small ssd (160Gb) I had and replaced her questionable ssd and she was good for now. Bought new 500Gb ssd. Now is the time to backup the 160Gb with Clonezilla. Clonezilla reports clonezilla-fails-at-cloning-with-mismatched-gpt-and-mbr-partition. So, trying to find an answer to my problem during the last few days I have discovered the following:

root@faxxx7:~# gdisk -l /dev/sdb

GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.6

Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid MBR and GPT. Which do you want to use?
 1 - MBR
 2 - GPT
 3 - Create blank GPT

Your answer: 2
Using GPT and creating fresh protective MBR.
Disk /dev/sdb: 312581808 sectors, 149.0 GiB
Model: INTEL SSDSA2M160
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): D42DAA42-3055-4D6E-830E-878B22D48A0F
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 312581774
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 312581741 sectors (149.0 GiB)

Then this:

root@faxxx7:~# parted -l

Model: ATA INTEL SSDSA2M160 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 160GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
*Partition Table: msdos*
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  53.5MB  52.4MB  primary  ntfs         boot
 2      53.5MB  159GB   159GB   primary  ntfs
 3      159GB   160GB   547MB   primary  ntfs         msftres

So, I now know that the original W10 build (on the 480Gb) was on GPT.

The 160Gb ssd was on MBR.

You can see that when I ran 'gdisk -l' Then 'gdisk' stated "Found valid MBR and GPT. Which do you want to use?" I shutdown and restarted however gdisk continues to report and ask the same question. I froze when it came time to try deleting the MBR info. Afraid that I was making a mistake and was about to loose the needed data.

The danger of data loose makes me very cautious.

This is not an experiment. I am in need of a experienced answer with some detail?

How do I correct this issue and still keep my data?

Improve this question
9
  • Using Linux to fix Windows does not normally work. See if you can get your data from the disk (in a carrier) and then reinstall Windows using the normal Microsoft way of installing Windows
    – anon
    Commented Apr 13 at 16:51
  • 1
    It appears you ran a command to make changes to your disk without necessarily understanding that would happen. Your partition table does not have enough partitions to necessarily be GPT. The Linux tool you used wasn’t necessarily the best tool for the job.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 13 at 17:03
  • Ramhound, the GPT partition table does not require any artificial minimum number of partitions.
    – r2d3
    Commented Apr 13 at 17:44
  • @r2d3—The default Windows images create a specific number of partitions. Windows 10 (by default) will boot in UEFI mode when installed. The disk had Windows installed. I would expect an EFI partition of a specific size, a Windows partition, and a WinRE of a specific size. You have admitted in a previous comment that you are not familiar with Windows while running in UEFI mode.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Apr 13 at 18:03
  • Ramhound, if this was my case your expectation would fail. :) I boot an UEFI bios in CSM mode. Furthermore parted states "Partition Table: msdos".
    – r2d3
    Commented Apr 13 at 18:08

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

I assume that your partition table scheme of your bootable system disk is in MBR (legacy, CSM) mode. Please check your BIOS settings to learn about your boot mode. If there are not UEFI boot settings you are probably using an older mainbard which is perfectly OK. The boot mode would determine which one of your two existing partition table schemes would need to be deleted.

According to your parted command your disk is using the old school MBR table scheme, labeled as "msdos" in parted.

Your gdisk command, however, states that your disk contains another partition table scheme, GPT, in addition to the MBR scheme.

To put your disk into a defined usable state, it should only contain one partition table.

The partition table scheme is either MBR "msdos" or GPT.

intel MBR/legacy/msdos scheme

If your partition table scheme is MBR, any GPT related structures should be deleted.

GPT

If your disk is supposed to be in GPT mode, then a GPT scheme is necessary but in order to prevent a legacy operating system that is not aware of this new GPT scheme a so-called protective MBR is required. This is an artifical partition in an MBR scheme that spans the whole disk effectively preventing a legacy operating system from writing new partitions on this disk.

Summary:

As your disk seem to use the old school Intel MBR "msdos" scheme, the GPT scheme should be deleted to prevent confusing backup programs.

As I don't know if there is a command to do this I would do that using a hexeditor such as HxD.

Before deleting, backup at least your partition table data. If I remember correctly, parted has a switch do describe partitions in sector number terms. Otherwise you can use TestDisk to generate a list of current partitions.

Using HxD would require deleting the GPT information in sector 2 to 33 and the duplicate at the end of the disk (read wikipedia article about its exact location).

That should make the Clonezilla error message disappear.

Improve this answer
3
  • So, I am still working through this issue. Gparted does not include any manner to backup the partition table. However, sfdisk and sgdisk does have a cli way to backup the partiton table. (When I tried to use Knoppix livecd gparted to with gparted >> Device >> Attempt Data Rescue gparted asked for gpart. Knoppix aptcache search could not find gpart.) I have also discovered that the disk IS a MBR partiton disk. Therefore, I need to delete the GPT partition info as soon as I backup my partiton table info. More soon......
    – trebonedoow
    Commented Apr 14 at 14:15
  • Following my advice how to backup the partition did not really convince you.
    – r2d3
    Commented Apr 14 at 22:13
  • Your suggestion lead me to my answer. I thought that was good help on your part. However, apparently you missed the point that Clonezilla would not allow a backup until the the MBR partition table or GPT partition table issue was corrected. As I could NOT loose any data from this drive I had to determine that I was absolutely comfortable with my partition table deletion choice.
    – trebonedoow
    Commented Apr 18 at 16:23
-1

All this started because I could not backup my wife's W10 ssd with Clonezilla. Clonezilla complained that there was both a MBR partition table info AND GPT partition table info on the ssd. I now know how both partition tables got on the drive. However, "how" does not matter. Here is what I did to correct this and it was actually quite simple. I searched for "linux how to delete gpt partition table info from ssd". That lead me to this article: faq_article This faq article gave me the info I needed to correct and now save my wife's ssd. With the successful backup of the 160Gb ssd I can now restore to the new 500Gb ssd with ease using Clonezilla. This solution would not have happened without the suggestion made by r2d3. Your suggestions lead me to locate more information that resulted in my solution. Thank you.

Improve this answer
3
  • Please quote the essential parts of the answer from the reference link(s), as the answer can become invalid if the linked page(s) change.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Apr 15 at 12:38
  • In the article I followed I found that by using 'gdisk /dev/sd*' the display presented: >Partition table scan: >MBR: MBR only >BSD: not present >APM: not present >GPT: present The by reading the help (?) I found an "x" option (x extra functionality (experts only)). As I needed to keep the MBR table because 'parted -l' the partition table as 'msdos'. Therefore the choice became obvious to use "z" (zap (destroy) GPT data structures and exit) to clear the GPT partition table. Rebooted and Clonezilla could backup finally.
    – trebonedoow
    Commented Apr 18 at 16:44
  • So add the information in the comment to your answer please.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Apr 18 at 17:00

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .