Rod Smith wrote: > I've recently discovered that when Windows reads a GPT disk with Linux > partitions on it, those partitions are given drive letters and show up > as unformatted. This situation can happen with removable disks or when > Linux and Windows dual-boot on a UEFI-based computer. Because UEFI is > becoming more common, this situation is also becoming more > common. This strikes me as a disaster waiting to happen; sooner or > later, somebody is going to trash a Linux installation by opting to > format a Linux partition in Windows. > > This problem occurs because Linux partitioning tools (libparted and my > own GPT fdisk) give Linux partitions the same partition type code GUID > used by Windows for its filesystem partitions > (EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7). Linux has its own GUID type > codes for other partition types, such as RAID, LVM, and swap space. > > Thus, it seems to me that Linux needs its own partition type code GUID > for filesystem partitions on GPT disks, much as it has its own MBR > partition type code for filesystems (0x83 on MBR). I'd like to > implement such a change in my own program, but I don't want to do this > unilaterally. Assuming there's no unusual protocol for creating > partition type code GUIDs, I suggest the following be used: > > 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4 > > That's just a partition-unique GUID for a partition I created on a > test disk using GNU Parted 3.0. > > Alternatively, we could use the existing "Linux reserved" partition > type code (8DA63339-0007-60C0-C436-083AC8230908); however, I don't > know who came up with that code or if it was intended for some > specific purpose or even a general non-filesystem purpose. Lacking > that knowledge, my inclination is to steer clear of that GUID. > > Of course, if somebody more needs to be involved in this, I'm happy to > contact whoever it might be. AFAIK, the kernel doesn't use partition > type codes, although some distributions' installers might. > > At the risk of jumping the gun, I'm attaching a patch to implement my > suggestion in libparted. (I hope the attachment gets through; but > Thunderbird is rewrapping it if I insert it inline.)
Hi Rod, Thanks for bringing this up and for the patch. However, if we were to make such a change, wouldn't it make it so parted clients that then create say NTFS- or FAT-formatted partitions would find those partitions are no longer treated as well on window systems? In addition, there are a few tools that handle the BDP GUID specially: https://codesearch.google.com/codesearch#search&q=EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 This suggests that instead we might want to teach parted how to change a GPT partition type GUID to a new value. Then, a higher level tool (like gparted) that knows the type of file system it has just created in a GPT partition can set the "type GUID" of that partition to something other than the basic data partition GUID when the FS type is not FAT or NTFS. _______________________________________________ bug-parted mailing list bug-parted@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-parted
