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  • Thanks for the clear answer. The fdisk on the parted magic image is 2.23.2 so the menu was a little different, but I got it created and then set to the right type. I looked again in GParted and formatted as fat32 there. GParted doesn't show anything concerning the type anywhere, and (looking again with fdisk) did not mess it up either.
    – JDługosz
    Commented Mar 15, 2015 at 9:58
  • It's especially unclear because fdisk's m help does not list everything, and is missing p and t in particular. It shows when I tested it in a VM. On the real machine, it adds a warning that GPT is experimental, and doesn't show the same options. I think the difference might be the EFI bootware? (I had to boot with BIOS in the VM since VMWare's UEFI has no fallback to legacy bootable media.
    – JDługosz
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 10:52
  • Hmmph. Well GPT is a pretty recent addition to fdisk, I don't know when the "experimental" warning was removed (because I remember seeing it, but then a while back noticed it wasn't there -- that could happen in one minor version 2.23 -> 2.24). The p and t options should definitely be there or something is very very wrong. That's part of the base functionality, unless maybe it thinks it cannot figure the device out at all and is refusing to mess with it. I haven't used it via VM's much, so...different issue?
    – goldilocks
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:27
  • WRT "EFI bootware" those answers on the Super User Q state pretty clearly the partition isn't actually used for firmware, just OS bootloaders -- if that's what you mean. I.e., if VMWare implements UEFI it should work without having seen the disk before (otherwise you have a chicken - egg problem). Another stupid thing that should be well documented somewhere obvious but perhaps is not. >_<
    – goldilocks
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 14:32
  • The VMWare 11 machine with legacy BIOS showed the full list of options. The real Supermicro X10-SAT with the same UBCD/partionMagic boot image was missing those two options at the least, and showed a warning.
    – JDługosz
    Commented Mar 17, 2015 at 18:09