Andy Smith <a...@strugglers.net> wrote: > Hello, > > On Wed, Nov 08, 2023 at 05:19:01PM -0700, Tom Dial wrote: > > On 11/7/23 17:19, gene heskett wrote: > > > What do I do if a gpt partition table has already been made and > > > an ext4 system is already installed? IOW just how "bare" a disk > > > is needed? Is writing a null gpt sufficient? > > > You can ignore them, or not, as you like. If you want, you could > > overwrite them with zeros or a pattern of your choice; I would not > > bother. > > You do need to be very careful if you have put a GPT label on a > device and then incompletely wiped the device in order to use it for > something else that doesn't involve a GPT label. > > The reason for that is, there are several motherboards (EFI > firmwares?) out there that consider a missing GPT label with a > backup GPT present to be an indication that the device is corrupt. > They then helpfully copy the backup GPT back to the start of the > disk, corrupting any data that was there already.
Yes, that kind of thing is why I always put a couple of small, unused partitions at the start and end of a disk that's to be used for LVM. Partition the disk as normal using GPT and then put LVM on the middle partition. > Example: > > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18541493 > > "wipefs -a /dev/sda" shold clear the GPT without having to write to > the entire device. > > Thanks, > Andy >
