Windows Vista and EFI

[Yaemish]

I was installing a Dual-boot of Vista and Leopard (I know its a no-no) and I started reading about being able to format for GUID or MBR. When I did GUID (I read it was faster), my bartPE disk could no longer understand how the hard drive was partitioned.

Is there a benefit to setting up partitions for Vista to use GUID? Does the MBR scheme support EFI?

[bbz_Ghost]

GUID is the "new" way to partition/format hard drives, most notably used on Macs currently but in time it will be the standard for all personal computers. EFI - Extensible Firmware Interface - is the replacement technology for the decades old BIOS that we've all been using for... well... decades, I guess.

It is possible to set up an Intel-based Mac with a totally MBR-based solution but in doing so you'd basically not be able to put Leopard on it since it requires the GUID style hard drive partitioning scheme. I know of a few people that bought Macs and wiped out the GUID tables and formatted the machines clean with MBR tables and now they run Windows exclusively on their "Macs" - there's nothing Apple about them anymore except the logo on the machine. Seems like an expensive way to run Windows, but people are fucking stupid, what can I say. :)

EFI is a replacement for the BIOS standard, it has nothing to do with MBR or GUID schemes which are related to hard drive partitioning and setup.

Hope this helps...

[Grentz]

bbz pretty much explained it as well as I could I think.

Really comes down to that EFI = New replacement for BIOS, GUID = New replacement for MBR.

They are separate things, but EFI brings support for GUID.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

[Yaemish]

I had read most of that same info dealing with EFI. My curiosity stems from a post in a Mac forum where someone said that "GUID" offers system response improvements over MBR. I'm wondering if that is true at all.

Also, not true about Leopard not running with Windows on MBR partitions. I was able to get Leopard and Vista to dual-boot off the same physical drive containing a journaled partition and NTFS partition.

[Grentz]

I had read most of that same info dealing with EFI. My curiosity stems from a post in a Mac forum where someone said that "GUID" offers system response improvements over MBR. I'm wondering if that is true at all.



I would doubt any improved responsiveness, but I guess anything is possible. Most of the changes deal with data integrity and better redundancy.

[Ranma_Sao]

GUID addresses the problem that you were only allowed 4 Primary Partitions. With GUID you're allowed 128 partitions...

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

[rickcfer]

Anyone know the procedure to install Vista 64 bit SP1 on a fresh hard drive using UEFI?
The Intel DX48BT2 offers an UEFI Boot. Are there any advantages to this setup?