SSD travails

I recently finally got an SSD to add to my homebuilt PC
running Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-Bit. I unplugged all drives but my
opticicles and the Samsung 840 Pro SSD and installed Windows with a
clean install on the drive. I started installing all my drivers and
set up all my hardware and set my internet access, restoring my
bookmarks and so on. I just got into starting to install some smaller
programs and ran out of time and had to shut the system down
overnight. The next time I powered the system it refused to boot off
the drive and I've been going back and forth trying everthing I could
think of but nothing worked. I went back to my old Hard-Drive
installation to get the system able to boot. The last time I tried to
boot off the SSD it gave me the message "BOOTMGR IS MISSING AND USE
Control-Alt-Delete to reboot" and I had to reinstall the rest of the
drives and boot off the hard-drive to make the Windows boot.
I'm not familiar with SSD's enough if I can reformat it and
try to reinstall Windows on it again after preparing it in Windows
Computer Management instead of off the DVD. Do you have to erase the
data or what? I have set up numerous disk Hard-Drives both in Windows
and allso when booting off Windowsw 7 DVD. I've had homebuilt sytems
since 1998 and this is a really confusing process. Per the PDF on the
Samsung driver disk I can do Secure Erase to clear the data. the drive
has always showed up in Wiindows and the BIOS, but isn't bootable. The
Windows 7 Home Premium DVD wouldn't Repair the installation and it
didn't even show up in the list of drives to fix it. I hate to erase
all the progress I'd made before I had to shut down Windows normally
to shut off the power. I've done clean reinstall every time got a new
hard-drive, and did it again with the SSD.
Any help would be apreciated.
Herb

On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 14:20:27 -0400, Cyborg-HAF
wrote:

EFI BIOS here, relatively old motherboards for SSD, and had some
trouble laying in a boot arbitrator over two active partitions - a
choice of DOS7 or WinXP. Eventually got it, but was tricky. Damn and
now I've got to figure out how I did it when a new Samsung EVO comes
in the next couple days. Fun! (should've made some notes last time).
What I did, basically, was to disconnect everything except the DVD and
SSD for getting it to boot with DOS before moving along to Windows on
a FAT32 active partition. Did a binary copy of an existing XP OS onto
that, too.

I'll probably have it figured out (again) in a week or so. Used
HIRENS boot CD to setup the Samsung SDD -- mostly. Maybe Easeus
inside Windows later to finish tweaking out (logical) partition sizes
(plus some "slack space"). I haven't been around W7 to say it would
initially work the same as XP, so I can't offhand make presumptions.
Sorry.

(Believe I made two active partitions and alternated between hiding
them until I found the *magic* combo or which one I finally got a boot
arbitrator, off HIRENs, to take. Once there I could boot to either
and eventually reimage the other partition, from DOS, with a prior
WinXP binary image. All FAT32, fwiw, on a 4G primary OS partition. I
install my programs elsewhere for a semi convoluted OS setup. Will
have to eventually get around to setting up W7 similarly -- try to,
anyway, one of these days.)

I recently finally got an SSD to add to my homebuilt PC
running Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-Bit. I unplugged all drives but my
opticicles and the Samsung 840 Pro SSD and installed Windows with a
clean install on the drive. I started installing all my drivers and
set up all my hardware and set my internet access, restoring my
bookmarks and so on. I just got into starting to install some smaller
programs and ran out of time and had to shut the system down
overnight. The next time I powered the system it refused to boot off
the drive and I've been going back and forth trying everthing I could
think of but nothing worked. I went back to my old Hard-Drive
installation to get the system able to boot. The last time I tried to
boot off the SSD it gave me the message "BOOTMGR IS MISSING AND USE
Control-Alt-Delete to reboot" and I had to reinstall the rest of the
drives and boot off the hard-drive to make the Windows boot.
I'm not familiar with SSD's enough if I can reformat it and
try to reinstall Windows on it again after preparing it in Windows
Computer Management instead of off the DVD. Do you have to erase the
data or what? I have set up numerous disk Hard-Drives both in Windows
and allso when booting off Windowsw 7 DVD. I've had homebuilt sytems
since 1998 and this is a really confusing process. Per the PDF on the
Samsung driver disk I can do Secure Erase to clear the data. the drive
has always showed up in Wiindows and the BIOS, but isn't bootable. The
Windows 7 Home Premium DVD wouldn't Repair the installation and it
didn't even show up in the list of drives to fix it. I hate to erase
all the progress I'd made before I had to shut down Windows normally
to shut off the power. I've done clean reinstall every time got a new
hard-drive, and did it again with the SSD.
Any help would be apreciated.
Herb

Cyborg-HAF wrote:
I recently finally got an SSD to add to my homebuilt PC
running Windows 7 Home Premuim 64-Bit. I unplugged all drives but my
opticicles and the Samsung 840 Pro SSD and installed Windows with a
clean install on the drive. I started installing all my drivers and
set up all my hardware and set my internet access, restoring my
bookmarks and so on. I just got into starting to install some smaller
programs and ran out of time and had to shut the system down
overnight. The next time I powered the system it refused to boot off
the drive and I've been going back and forth trying everthing I could
think of but nothing worked. I went back to my old Hard-Drive
installation to get the system able to boot. The last time I tried to
boot off the SSD it gave me the message "BOOTMGR IS MISSING AND USE
Control-Alt-Delete to reboot" and I had to reinstall the rest of the
drives and boot off the hard-drive to make the Windows boot.

I'm not familiar with SSD's enough if I can reformat it and
try to reinstall Windows on it again after preparing it in Windows
Computer Management instead of off the DVD. Do you have to erase the
data or what? I have set up numerous disk Hard-Drives both in Windows
and allso when booting off Windowsw 7 DVD. I've had homebuilt sytems
since 1998 and this is a really confusing process. Per the PDF on the
Samsung driver disk I can do Secure Erase to clear the data. the drive
has always showed up in Wiindows and the BIOS, but isn't bootable. The
Windows 7 Home Premium DVD wouldn't Repair the installation and it
didn't even show up in the list of drives to fix it. I hate to erase
all the progress I'd made before I had to shut down Windows normally
to shut off the power. I've done clean reinstall every time got a new
hard-drive, and did it again with the SSD.
Any help would be apreciated.
Herb

There's a wealth of things you could do.

First of all, you can do a site specific search in Google, as in

site:sevenforums.com BOOTMGR IS MISSING

That will get you this tutorial, on using boot repair
from an installer DVD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ssing-fix.html

That would be the "intelligent" response to your error message,
intended to preserve the work done to date on the SSD.

*******

Windows 7 has "Repair Install" like WinXP, but with an important
difference. They decided you must boot the existing Windows 7,
run setup.exe off the DVD, before you can repair. That's not
going to help a person like yourself, to do a Repair Install.
A Repair Install of the Win7 type, moves Windows to Windows.old
and creates a new Windows folder, then copies settings from the
old Windows. It would be a way to preserve your settings and
programs.

*******

Windows 7 can do a one partition or two partition installation.
The two partition install is intended to support Bitlocker full
encryption. The small 100MB SYSTEM RESERVED partition contains
boot files, while the main C: contains the rest of the OS. BitLocker
is then used to encrypt all of C:. A one partition installation
(only a C, is intended for those users nor using BitLocker.
BitLocker is not supported on all versions of Windows 7. My laptop
will never be using BitLocker and has Home Premium on it, so I did
a one partition install. If I was doing an Anytime Upgrade to
Ultimate (not going to happen), then to use BitLocker, I'd need
those two partitions.

If you boot the Windows 7 DVD and select the repair console
(a DOS-like Command Prompt window), you can use DiskPart in
there. There are options like Clean to delete all partitions.
If no partitions are visible on the SSD when the Windows
installer starts, it will install two partitions - the 100MB
SYSTEM RESERVED (no drive letter) and the larger C: drive.
SYSTEM RESERVED should not be given a drive letter, as
that causes System Restore to not do Restore Points on there,
and use up all of the 100MB space.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

clean - clean the partitions off the in-focus disk

If you define a single partition (NTFS) in DiskPart and
make it the size you like, the Windows 7 installer DVD will
do a one partition install inside that partition. If you do
a one partition install, it leaves more primary partitions
for multi-boot setups.

You can also convert a two partition installation, to a one
partition installation, using these instructions. That's
actually how I started the process of upgrading my laptop
one day. That gave me another partition to work with.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

Anyway, that's enough for now.

I'd say "do a backup first", but since you have next to
nothing invested in the SSD install at the moment, you
can do just about anything you want without a backup.

Doing a Secure Erase on the Samsung, would be a waste
of one of the 3000 write life cycles. You would use
1/3000 of the write lifetimes. And unnecessary in this case.
Doing a "clean" followed by a reinstall, uses about
0.05 of one of those or so (just a guess). Secure Erase
should be reserved for cases where all actual data
needs removal (such as when giving the SSD to
a charity).

Have fun,
Paul

On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 22:23:50 -0400, Paul wrote:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ssing-fix.html

The SSD does not have a Reserved System partition along with
the Windows partion. My hard-drive I'm using for now does have this
Reserved smaller partition along with my C: with my Windows and
Programs, etc. My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used. I can't
remember how far I go in Windows 7 installation to get to the Repair
option ( I bailed out at the screen where you choose where to instal
it ater downloading Updates before installing. The Home Premiium
version doesn't have all the tools that the Business versions come
with and I have run into this one time I tried to repair a proplem
install. I guess I'll try again and see if will come one page after I
cancelled out.
Herb

Cyborg-HAF schreef op 4/06/2014 7:36:
On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 22:23:50 -0400, Paul wrote:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ssing-fix.html

The SSD does not have a Reserved System partition along with
the Windows partion. My hard-drive I'm using for now does have this
Reserved smaller partition along with my C: with my Windows and
Programs, etc. My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used. I can't
remember how far I go in Windows 7 installation to get to the Repair
option ( I bailed out at the screen where you choose where to instal
it ater downloading Updates before installing. The Home Premiium
version doesn't have all the tools that the Business versions come
with and I have run into this one time I tried to repair a proplem
install. I guess I'll try again and see if will come one page after I
cancelled out.
Herb

When you do a clean install of W7, AND you have an already formatted
partition on the drive (HD or SSD), then you don't have the 100MB
reserved partition. And you don't need it : in this case all the boot
info and files are on your 'normal' Windows partition.
However, if you copied the Windows partition from the old HD to the SSD
and did NOT copy the 100MB partition, then W7 will not boot.

Carpe Diem wrote:
Cyborg-HAF schreef op 4/06/2014 7:36:
On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 22:23:50 -0400, Paul wrote:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ssing-fix.html

The SSD does not have a Reserved System partition along with
the Windows partion. My hard-drive I'm using for now does have this
Reserved smaller partition along with my C: with my Windows and
Programs, etc. My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used. I can't
remember how far I go in Windows 7 installation to get to the Repair
option ( I bailed out at the screen where you choose where to instal
it ater downloading Updates before installing. The Home Premiium
version doesn't have all the tools that the Business versions come
with and I have run into this one time I tried to repair a proplem
install. I guess I'll try again and see if will come one page after I
cancelled out.
Herb

When you do a clean install of W7, AND you have an already formatted
partition on the drive (HD or SSD), then you don't have the 100MB
reserved partition. And you don't need it : in this case all the boot
info and files are on your 'normal' Windows partition.
However, if you copied the Windows partition from the old HD to the SSD
and did NOT copy the 100MB partition, then W7 will not boot.

And in Disk Management, you get some hint as to where those
things are stored.

http://i58.tinypic.com/2drce0z.gif

To successfully clone that disk in the example, I would
want to copy the two partitions, as well as get the boot code
stored in the MBR (sector 0). The MBR isn't mentioned in my diagram,
because Disk Management doesn't have a GUI representation for that
single sector 0 at the beginning of the disk drive. Disk cloning
software will typically get all the bits and pieces needed
(just tick the boxes to copy those two partitions).

This doesn't address GPT partitioning at all, which is just
a "slightly different MBR scheme" for lack of a better term.
You still need enough items, to make a complete set.

Linux has taken to doing this sort of thing too, where they
have a tiny boot partition, as well as the rest of the OS
on a bigger partition. But I don't know why exactly they
feel they have to do that. It caused minor grief when
I was working with it. Just a PITA. I guess we could
also say, in its way, the SYSTEM RESERVED used on Windows
(to support BitLocker), is a similar PITA. A PITA if you don't
know why it is there, what is a "complete set", and so on.

Paul

In article , Cyborg-HAF
writes

My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used.

You need to make the partition active, and perhaps also install a
bootloader.

With XP, you would boot to the recovery console from the install CD and
use FIXBOOT and FIXMBR. I think the procedure is different for W7

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 01:36:39 -0400, Cyborg-HAF
wrote:


The SSD does not have a Reserved System partition along with
the Windows partion. My hard-drive I'm using for now does have this
Reserved smaller partition along with my C: with my Windows and
Programs, etc. My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used. I can't
remember how far I go in Windows 7 installation to get to the Repair
option ( I bailed out at the screen where you choose where to instal
it ater downloading Updates before installing. The Home Premiium
version doesn't have all the tools that the Business versions come
with and I have run into this one time I tried to repair a proplem
install. I guess I'll try again and see if will come one page after I
cancelled out.

Doesn't appear you've "cancelled out," at 29.3GB, as much as what
already may be established within precepts by priorities. . . Going
by observations, although I've never actually had to go through what
you are, I might take into account a somewhat imperative form given in
priority to that Reserved System, and a consequent allocation for
storage medium.

Windows-7 takes 20-30 GB.

The 100 MB is reserved for the boot config data store, recovery files
and bitlocker space. Unecessary if not using those OS stored features.
If it's not there, you can't boot.

Windows 7 may create the System Reserved partition only when given
such that a disk provision for that event is raw.

SSD EVO, problem may be the drive is shipped as a GPT partition
and requires (cleaning and) conversion to MBR.

If you're really "into" rigamarole, there's always here... Ladies and
Misses, among other sorts . . . ta! da! it's the one and only, like
nobody else ... presenting. . .The Official MS W7 Scheme of Things...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

(But, I know what you're saying ... imagine it's now 10 years into the
future, and I've some amazingly huge HDD, sheer magnitudes
exponentially exceeding terabyte capacities. And, I'd be groaning and
moaning like hell, ****ing up a storm of begrudging resentment against
MS for taking one iota more of MY Damn Storage without My Permission.
....Who in God's Unholy Hell asked for that damn crap in the first
place? Well, just to set the record set, let me tell you this in no
uncertain terms blah, blah ... &etc ).

On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 14:29:27 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 01:36:39 -0400, Cyborg-HAF
wrote:


The SSD does not have a Reserved System partition along with
the Windows partion. My hard-drive I'm using for now does have this
Reserved smaller partition along with my C: with my Windows and
Programs, etc. My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used. I can't
remember how far I go in Windows 7 installation to get to the Repair
option ( I bailed out at the screen where you choose where to instal
it ater downloading Updates before installing. The Home Premiium
version doesn't have all the tools that the Business versions come
with and I have run into this one time I tried to repair a proplem
install. I guess I'll try again and see if will come one page after I
cancelled out.

Doesn't appear you've "cancelled out," at 29.3GB, as much as what
already may be established within precepts by priorities. . . Going
by observations, although I've never actually had to go through what
you are, I might take into account a somewhat imperative form given in
priority to that Reserved System, and a consequent allocation for
storage medium.

Windows-7 takes 20-30 GB.

The 100 MB is reserved for the boot config data store, recovery files
and bitlocker space. Unecessary if not using those OS stored features.
If it's not there, you can't boot.

Windows 7 may create the System Reserved partition only when given
such that a disk provision for that event is raw.

SSD EVO, problem may be the drive is shipped as a GPT partition
and requires (cleaning and) conversion to MBR.

If you're really "into" rigamarole, there's always here... Ladies and
Misses, among other sorts . . . ta! da! it's the one and only, like
nobody else ... presenting. . .The Official MS W7 Scheme of Things...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

(But, I know what you're saying ... imagine it's now 10 years into the
future, and I've some amazingly huge HDD, sheer magnitudes
exponentially exceeding terabyte capacities. And, I'd be groaning and
moaning like hell, ****ing up a storm of begrudging resentment against
MS for taking one iota more of MY Damn Storage without My Permission.
...Who in God's Unholy Hell asked for that damn crap in the first
place? Well, just to set the record set, let me tell you this in no
uncertain terms blah, blah ... &etc ).

I didn't clone my present Windows 7 installation, I just did a
fresh install on a free hard-drive to get my system to boot. I now
have a Windows 7Professional New disk set I ordered on Ebay from
Canada to come in next week and may just want to clear out the
installation on the SSD which is the same seat licence as the one I'm
running now. It is the only seat I have other than my old XP seat.
I also have a new High Point SATA card on order that can free
up a couple of my Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard's SATA6 ports that
are now all occupied with data hard-drives that need them. It will
free up one that the SSD can use. It now is on a SATA3 port so I
could get look at what was on it at the point where it wouldn't boot.
Back when first tried to do a Repair Install the setup didn't
even list the SSD as one of the destinations for doing the Repair and
as far as I can remember it said it could only install on a GPT
formated disk and the SSD didn't qualify; is this why there is no
Reserved partion along with the rest of the space for the install? Aso
is there any way to clear the install on it without using a Secure
Erase to clear it for the Windows 7 Professional fresh install. None
of the website's I read worked with my Home Premium that didn't have
any of the tools that they mentioned on the sites and nothing could be
fixed about the boot problem with my Windows 7 Home Premium.
I checked the SSD in Disk Management and set it as Active but
that didn't make any difference as far as the BOOTMGR issue that still
comes up if I try to boot of it.
Any sugestions as the best way to clear out the Windows
installed on the SSD to make it ready for a fresh install of the
Professional while have a copy of Windows bootable to do it in would
be appeciated.
Herb

Cyborg-HAF wrote:
On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 14:29:27 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Jun 2014 01:36:39 -0400, Cyborg-HAF
wrote:

The SSD does not have a Reserved System partition along with
the Windows partion. My hard-drive I'm using for now does have this
Reserved smaller partition along with my C: with my Windows and
Programs, etc. My Windows 7 disk apparently neglected to do this on
the SSD; there is just one partition with 29.3 Gb Used. I can't
remember how far I go in Windows 7 installation to get to the Repair
option ( I bailed out at the screen where you choose where to instal
it ater downloading Updates before installing. The Home Premiium
version doesn't have all the tools that the Business versions come
with and I have run into this one time I tried to repair a proplem
install. I guess I'll try again and see if will come one page after I
cancelled out.
Doesn't appear you've "cancelled out," at 29.3GB, as much as what
already may be established within precepts by priorities. . . Going
by observations, although I've never actually had to go through what
you are, I might take into account a somewhat imperative form given in
priority to that Reserved System, and a consequent allocation for
storage medium.

Windows-7 takes 20-30 GB.

The 100 MB is reserved for the boot config data store, recovery files
and bitlocker space. Unecessary if not using those OS stored features.
If it's not there, you can't boot.

Windows 7 may create the System Reserved partition only when given
such that a disk provision for that event is raw.

SSD EVO, problem may be the drive is shipped as a GPT partition
and requires (cleaning and) conversion to MBR.

If you're really "into" rigamarole, there's always here... Ladies and
Misses, among other sorts . . . ta! da! it's the one and only, like
nobody else ... presenting. . .The Official MS W7 Scheme of Things...

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

(But, I know what you're saying ... imagine it's now 10 years into the
future, and I've some amazingly huge HDD, sheer magnitudes
exponentially exceeding terabyte capacities. And, I'd be groaning and
moaning like hell, ****ing up a storm of begrudging resentment against
MS for taking one iota more of MY Damn Storage without My Permission.
...Who in God's Unholy Hell asked for that damn crap in the first
place? Well, just to set the record set, let me tell you this in no
uncertain terms blah, blah ... &etc ).

I didn't clone my present Windows 7 installation, I just did a
fresh install on a free hard-drive to get my system to boot. I now
have a Windows 7Professional New disk set I ordered on Ebay from
Canada to come in next week and may just want to clear out the
installation on the SSD which is the same seat licence as the one I'm
running now. It is the only seat I have other than my old XP seat.
I also have a new High Point SATA card on order that can free
up a couple of my Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard's SATA6 ports that
are now all occupied with data hard-drives that need them. It will
free up one that the SSD can use. It now is on a SATA3 port so I
could get look at what was on it at the point where it wouldn't boot.
Back when first tried to do a Repair Install the setup didn't
even list the SSD as one of the destinations for doing the Repair and
as far as I can remember it said it could only install on a GPT
formated disk and the SSD didn't qualify; is this why there is no
Reserved partion along with the rest of the space for the install? Aso
is there any way to clear the install on it without using a Secure
Erase to clear it for the Windows 7 Professional fresh install. None
of the website's I read worked with my Home Premium that didn't have
any of the tools that they mentioned on the sites and nothing could be
fixed about the boot problem with my Windows 7 Home Premium.
I checked the SSD in Disk Management and set it as Active but
that didn't make any difference as far as the BOOTMGR issue that still
comes up if I try to boot of it.
Any sugestions as the best way to clear out the Windows
installed on the SSD to make it ready for a fresh install of the
Professional while have a copy of Windows bootable to do it in would
be appeciated.
Herb

You can boot the installer DVD, and run the Command Prompt window
from there. In this picture, it's the bottom option.

http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/upl...06/F11xx19.bmp

The utility "diskpart" is a command line utility
for dealing with disks. It has the same features as Disk Management.
To clear a disk, you would "select" a particular disk, then use
the "clean" command, rather than the "clean all" command. The
"Clean" would delete the MBR so the partitions would
disappear. Effectively giving an empty disk. If you wanted a forensically
clean disk, one where every sector was overwritten, that's what
the "Clean all" is for. Secure Erase would wear the SSD about
as much as a "Clean all" would (enhanced Secure Erase may even
erase all spare sectors as well).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Note that there could be differences between "diskpart" versions
available with the various Windows OSes. For example, "shrink"
is not documented on that page. But there is enough info there to
complete a "Clean" operation.

*******

A Repair install on Windows 7, consists of booting Windows 7,
then inserting the Windows 7 installer DVD, then run setup.exe.
Any partition with Windows 7 on it, could be a target for
Repair. The Windows folder becomes Windows.old and a new
Windows folder is installed. Your WinXP disk would not be
an installation target (because that would not be a Repair).

If you *boot* the Windows 7 DVD, it can be used for doing installations.
A general rule of thumb, is you can do an upgrade installation
on a Windows OS which is one generation older. For example,
if you boot Win7 x64 DVD, a disk has Vista x64 on it, then
the Upgrade would install Windows 7 on the Vista partition,
copying programs and settings as appropriate.

If instead, you point the installer DVD at your WinXP partition,
only a "Clean Install" would be offered. In the sense that
programs and settings would not be preserved. It might even
format the partition on you. If you use FAST or WET (Windows
Easy Transfer), that might preserve settings (by restoring them later),
but generally I'm not aware of a way to drag programs over
to the new installation that way.

There is a double install method, for avoiding the need for
a "qualifying OS" with an Upgrade disc. Which is yet another
possible installation type. There are additional links
at the bottom of this page, with other install types listed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...7-version.html

GPT and MBR partitioning should both be options. The details
are likely in the Wikipedia table, as to what things are
needed for GPT boot to work. For example, a modern UEFI
BIOS interface might be needed. UEFI typically has
modules to support legacy booting, as well as GPT boot.
All my computers here have no UEFI, so I have no means
to test GPT boot. Even if I wanted to.

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

HTH,
Paul