Gparted - Cannot create 2.7Tb partition

[BRB]

I'm installing LMDE on a new 3Tb hard drive. I want to have a 30Gb partition for /, with the rest of the drive as /home

Using GParted to repartition, however, when I try to create the /home partition, I get the following error :
libparted messages
partition length of 5797550080 sectors exceeds the msdos-partition-table-imposed maximum of 4294967295

I'm guessing this has something to do with the bios settings on this machine. Any suggestions?

[Derek_S]

Are you using MBR or GPT partitioning? MBR is limited to 2TB partition size. GPT allows for 16TB(I think?). Read this link:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/84538/tr ... osed-error

You might want to download the portable version of Mini Tool Partition Wizard and install it to a USB stick. I always have this available to use.
The link is here, the portable version is at the bottom of the page: http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html
Use Rufus to install it, the link is here: http://rufus.akeo.ie/

[BRB]

Are you using MBR or GPT partitioning? MBR is limited to 2TB partition size. GPT allows for 16TB(I think?). Read this link:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/84538/tr ... osed-error

That was it. Chose GPT partitioning and was able to set it up with no difficulties. First time I've used a drive over 2Tb, so didn't even know about the difference.

Thanks!

[srs5694]

Are you using MBR or GPT partitioning? MBR is limited to 2TB partition size. GPT allows for 16TB(I think?).

Actually, MBR uses 32-bit pointers for the start points and sizes of partitions, which works out to 2TiB, or roughly 2.2TB -- note that 1TiB = 1024^4, whereas 1TB = 1000^4. That's roughly a 10% difference. Also, b = bit, whereas B = byte -- an 8-fold difference. Sorry for seeming anal, but these details (especially the TiB/TB issue) cause a lot of confusion.

[BRB]

I just noticed on the LMDE Known issues page, http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_debian.php, it says the following:

No EFI/GPT support

Linux Mint Debian requires BIOS and a traditional partitioning scheme.

I didn't see this until after I had partitioned the drive using GPT and installed LMDE.
I was able to boot without any obvious issues. However, at one point the machine did freeze up completely and dropped out of the GUI to TTY1, where it gave I/O errors trying to access the drive, and which required a hard reboot.
It has been OK since, but I wonder if the I/O errors may have been related to the above "known issue" with LMDE. I assumed it was either a loose cable connection or faulty hard drive.

Reading this article, http://www.zdnet.com/the-never-ending-s ... 000013104/, I'm thinking that using GPT with LMDE is a really bad idea, and I should go back and make a couple of smaller partitions . . .

(And I'll be more careful about Tb v. TB v. TiB in the future )

[srs5694]

If you've got an over-2TiB disk, then switching to MBR isn't a good option. Technically, you can get up to 4TiB out of an MBR disk by making everything after the 2TiB mark be a single partition, but that's an awkward solution, and it doesn't even work on some OSes, so it's a bit risky if you think anything but Linux or a recent Windows will ever access the disk. (It could conceivably throw the firmware for a loop, too, although I've not tested this.)

I've got an LMDE installation that uses GPT and EFI booting, and it's fine; I just needed to install the EFI boot loader manually. (See my Web page on EFI boot loaders for more on that topic.) Your crash was almost certainly either hardware-related or a quirk; GPT support has existed in the Linux kernel and in various other Linux components for a long time. The only reason that LMDE doesn't officially support EFI booting (and maybe GPT; I'm not sure of its status) is that the Debian developers hasn't glued all the pieces together until recently, and LMDE is based on Debian. There's nothing flaky about the underlying GPT or EFI features in LMDE; it's just scattered about.

[kurotsugi]

I didn't see this until after I had partitioned the drive using GPT and installed LMDE.
I was able to boot without any obvious issues. However, at one point the machine did freeze up completely and dropped out of the GUI to TTY1, where it gave I/O errors trying to access the drive, and which required a hard reboot.
It has been OK since, but I wonder if the I/O errors may have been related to the above "known issue" with LMDE. I assumed it was either a loose cable connection or faulty hard drive.

LMDE can run with GPT. that message is actually for those using secureboot/UEFI which debian still decide to not support them.

anyway, the freezing issue might related with hardware of the kernel issue. if I'm not mistaken LMDE latest iso have kernel 3.2 and have several issue with intel ivy generation processor.

[Monsta]

Reading this article, http://www.zdnet.com/the-never-ending-s ... 000013104/, I'm thinking that using GPT with LMDE is a really bad idea, and I should go back and make a couple of smaller partitions . . .

Out of curiosity, I've created a virtual machine in Virtualbox, set the partition scheme to GPT using GParted and installed LMDE. Everything went fine, no glitches. The system boots and works normally.
The only thing related to "no GPT support" is that the installer can't create GPT partition table itself. When you install to an empty disk without the partition table, the installer asks if it should create a new one. You should answer "No", then click on the "Edit partitions" button to invoke GParted, then create the partition table there and go back. Or just run GParted before running the installer.

BTW, the comments to this blog post contain a lot of useful information on installing LMDE with GPT - just search for "GPT" on the page.

[Monsta]

I've filed this bug report asking to clarify the situation on GPT and add the full support to the installer. Add your comments there if you think this should be resolved.

[BRB]

Thanks for all the advice on this; my machine is an AMD A8, does not use secureboot/EFI. It appears I did the right thing (partition the drive using GPT prior to install) without knowing it was the right thing.