Installing PcBSD on a GPT HDD

[angel]

Hi,
Is there any way, I can install PcBSD 8.2 on a GPT (GUID Partition Table) HDD without destroying my existing data? I have free space about 20 GB where I want to install PcBSD, but in the partition section, installer is not letting me to install there.
I know it´s possible to install PcBSD on a GPT HDD by creating new partition table using GPT scheme. But this is gonna destroy my all the data.

[kmoore134]

Right now you can only install to a pre-existing MBR primary partition,
and even then when dealing with a GPT/MBR hybrid, like on a Mac, it will
be difficult. I'm investigating how to make this process easier now, and
will try to get something in place by 9.0.

[angel]

Well, I tested on my Desktop, I installed by creating new partition table using GPT scheme. But the problem is, it ate my whole HDD by Auto Partioning!

[wwinter86]

Hi,
I would like to install PC-BSD 9 onto a partition on my external hard drive, however it uses a guid partition table as there is a Time Machine backup partition on it.
When I try to install PC-BSD it say most be installed directly to an MBR, is there a way around this?

My Partitions:
http://i51.tinypic.com/30cvk1y.jpg

[kmoore134]

At the moment PC-BSD can only use GPT to install to an entire disk.

[wwinter86]

I decided to just start again and make the drive MBR. It now installs and I’ve put on rEFIt.
However it will not boot, I thought it was because I installed the 64bit version and my EFI is efi32, so I installed the 32bit version.
But this is the error I get;

Error: Not found from LocalDevicePath
Error: Load error while (re)opening our installation volume
Firmware refused to boot from selected volume


Also if I try to install from internet I can get the list of mirrors to show up by using ifconfig and dhclient, but when I select a mirror it only closes the mirror select box and if I click next again it just brings up the mirror select box again.

My Mac: iMac 20” Late 2006 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB Ram DDR2, Boot Rom IM51.0090.B09, efi32, running Mac OS X Lion 10.7

[kmoore134]

I'm not sure if how to make reFit work with BSD, I've read around the
webs that it can be a rather hairy process.

http://randomcomputerbits.blogspot.com/2007/12/freebsd-on-macbook.html ('http://randomcomputerbits.blogspot.com/2007/12/freebsd-on-macbook.html')

As for the network / mirror install, I've fixed that bug in SVN a few
days ago, will be in the next BETA.

[wwinter86]

Ok thanks, yeah it sounds like a pain.

Glade you fixed it.

[angel]

I'm investigating how to make this process easier now, and
will try to get something in place by 9.0.

Hi,
Any update of the situation for 9.0 beta 3?

[angel]

I just tried the latest PcBSD 9. It successfully installed on my GPT HDD without reformat my HDD and without showing any error. But after reboot a corrupted grub 2 error is showing from my previous Fedora installed. It was so close. I hope, still it will be possible to boot into PcBSD. Any help please?

[TGIK]

I am just finishing up this essay where I explain a lot about my multi-boot setup---- will post this ASAP

--A few quick things -- for me personally, rEFIt is an invaluable resource to aid in multi-boot setups on macs. My laptop has OSX, XP SP3, Ubuntu 10.4. My Desktop (Mac Pro) has 3 versions of OSX, Vista, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Windows 7, PC BSD 9 and at times has contained more. On my laptop rEFIt allows me to choose between OS's very easily---On my desktop, since I have multiple hard drives I use refit to boot into grub 2 from there I can chainload into more OS's---

For example I had an MBR disk with 4 primary partitions -- 1st partition for Solaris (which works like BSD in terms of disk layout) 2nd for FAT32 cross-platform storage 3rd for HFS+ storage and the 4th for PC-BSD 8.2. To get these to boot required a chainloader to chainloader --- I would boot my mac and at the rEFIt menu choose my ubuntu. This would take me Grub2 (if I chose the BSD icon I would end up at Grub2 anyway). Within Grub 2 I had made a custom menu entry I called 'Unix world' this would chainload me to the BSD boot menu-- from there I could choose my Solaris (f1) or my BSD (f4) ---

I will explain more in the next post