donkey Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Hello everyone. I searched for this topic and I didn't find much info. Is there a way to setup a GUID partition w.out having the 200mb EFI partition? It looks like it is created automatically. I can trick windows 7 installer's system partition into a regular partition but that creates a MBR instead of GUID. Or is there a way to created a GUID partition via windows install CD? Thanks for your input! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/182431-200mb-efi-partition/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
srs5694 Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 The EFI System Partition (ESP) is required to boot a computer with GPT partitions on a system with EFI rather than a legacy BIOS. (At least officially; I don't know if there are any workarounds on EFI-based systems.) On a BIOS-based system that uses GPT, the ESP is not required. I don't know about Apple's utilities, but lots of tools will create a disk without an ESP -- GNU Parted and my own GPT fdisk are two I know about. That said, installing without an ESP might be a bit short-sighted, since it might be required in the future. I know of at least one boot loader (for NetBSD) that uses the ESP to store its files. Thus, I recommend you simply leave the ESP in place, at least for boot disks. It's not like the 100-200MB it consumes will be a great hardship on a modern hard disk with a capacity measured in the hundreds of gigabytes. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/182431-200mb-efi-partition/#findComment-1239976 Share on other sites More sharing options...
donkey Posted September 16, 2009 Author Share Posted September 16, 2009 Thanks again Rod! I didn't notice that you replied. Appreciate the response to both posts Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/182431-200mb-efi-partition/#findComment-1268150 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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