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1.0.3 (7/27/2017): ------------------ - Fixed a major bug that caused invalid partition tables to be generated under some conditions. 1.0.2 (7/26/2017): ------------------ - On Linux, the p/-p/--print command now shows the disk's model name, as reported in /sys/block/sda/device/model (or equivalent filenames for other disks). This feature does not yet work on other platforms, on which the model name line is omitted from the output. This line is also not shown when accessing disk image files, even on Linux. - GPT fdisk can now report both the physical and logical sector sizes of disks, but only on 2.6.32 and later Linux kernels. The verify feature now uses the larger of the set alignment and physical/logical block sizes for testing alignment, and setting alignment to something other than an exact multiple of the ratio of the physical to logical block size results in a warning. - Addition of new verification checks, mostly (but not exclusively) related to the new j/-j/--move-main-table option. - Added new option: 'j' on the experts' menu in gdisk; '-j/--move-main-table={sector}' in sgdisk. This option enables relocating the main partition table from sector 2 (the default location) to somewhere else on the disk. The main reason I know of to do this is if the disk is to be used with a system-on-chip (SoC) computer, some of which require the boot loader to be located at sector 2. If you pass this option the default value of 2, it has the effect of reducing the padding placed between the main partition table and the first usable sector value created by the Linux fdisk tool. - Updated man pages with new recommendations for ESP and BIOS Boot Partition sizes. - Added four type codes (AF06 through AF09) for Apple SoftRAID (Status, Scratch, Volume, and Cache). - Added two type codes for the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE): 0xe100 (7412F7D5-A156-4B13-81DC-867174929325) and 0xe101 (D4E6E2CD-4469-46F3-B5CB-1BFF57AFC149). - Added thirteen type codes for Android partitions (0xa000 through 0xa00c). - Added type code for QNX6 (aka QNX Power-Safe) filesystem: 0xb300, for CEF5A9AD-73BC-4601-89F3-CDEEEEE321A1. - Removed stray debug message ("REALLY setting name!") from sgdisk, when setting new name via -c option. 1.0.1 (10/18/2015): ------------------- - Created uninstall-fixparts and uninstall-gdisk scripts for OS X. As the names imply, these scripts remove the files installed by the fixparts and gdisk packages, respectively. - Fixed bug that caused -N/--largest-new option to sgdisk to fail when fed a "0" option. - Fixed bug that caused input glitches in EFI version of gdisk. - Fixed bug that caused sgdisk to not return an appropriate error code when it encountered a write error when saving changes. - Fixed bug that caused cgdisk's "Info" display to under-report the partition's size by one sector. - OS X 10.11 includes new security features that prevent GPT fdisk from working unless these features are disabled. To do so, you must boot to a Recovery HD system, open a Terminal, type "csrutil disable", and reboot into the normal system. You can re-enable the security features by repeating the process, but specify "enable" rather than "disable". I've added a message pointing users to a Web page explaining how to disable this feature when gdisk detects that it can't write to the disk under OS X. If you know of a way around this (including code changes to gdisk), please contact me. - I've updated the OS X installation location from the Unix-standard /usr/sbin (and related locations for documentation) to /usr/local/bin (and related locations for documentation). This is Just Plain Crazy from a Unix point of view, but Apple has to be Apple and do things just a little bit differently. - I've updated my OS X environment to OS X 10.11 and LLVM 7.0.0. This has also meant installing fresh versions of popt and ncurses from MacPorts, which may require upgrading popt to get sgdisk working on some systems. (gdisk, cgdisk, and fixparts should continue to work normally on all systems.) The OS X binaries are now "fat" (32- and 64-bit) versions, which should have no noticeable effect unless you have a Mac with broken 32-bit support, in which case the binaries will now work. - Changed the default name of 0xab00 partitions from "Apple boot" to "Recovery HD", since the latter is the name that Apple gives these partitions. Also, I discovered through painful experience that OS X flakes out and won't boot if the name is something other than "Recovery HD", so it really has to have the right name! - Changed the OpenBSD type codes (0xa600 and 0xa601): 0xa600 is now 824CC7A0-36A8-11E3-890A-952519AD3F61 (OpenBSD disklabel) and 0xa601 is now gone. Previously, 0xa600 was 516E7CB4-6ECF-11D6-8FF8-00022D09712B, a duplicate of the FreeBSD disklabel, and 0xa601 was 824CC7A0-36A8-11E3-890A-952519AD3F61. OpenBSD is now officially supporting 824CC7A0-36A8-11E3-890A-952519AD3F61 as a disklabel type, though. It's unclear what, if anything, OpenBSD will use for non-disklabel type codes at the moment. - Added GUID 0311FC50-01CA-4725-AD77-9ADBB20ACE98 (0xbc00) for Acronis Secure Zone backup partitions. - Fixed bug that caused random crashes on ppc64el systems (and perhaps others). - Added GUID C91818F9-8025-47AF-89D2-F030D7000C2C (0x3900) for Plan 9. - Added GUID 69DAD710-2CE4-4E3C-B16C-21A1D49ABED3 (0x8307) for 32-bit ARM Linux root (/) partition, as per the Freedesktop.org Discoverable Partition Spec (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/). - Edited man pages to clarify that default alignment is to 1MiB boundaries; this translates to 2048 sectors on disks with 512-byte sectors, but it will be something else on disks with other sector sizes. - Changed behavior of -z/--zap and -Z/--zap-all options to sgdisk so that if a subsequent command causes changes, they'll be written to disk. Previously, doing something like "sgdisk --zap-all --clear /dev/sdd" would wipe the disk but not create a partition table; to create a blank table you'd need to do "sgdisk --zap-all --clear --mbrtogpt /dev/sdd", which is a bit odd and counter-intuitive, to the point of arguably being a bug. 1.0.0 (3/16/2015): ------------------ - I'm now building a binary package of gdisk_x64.efi, using the UEFI GPT fdisk package. - Added partition type for OpenBSD data (824CC7A0-36A8-11E3-890A-952519AD3F61/0xa601). Also mapped 0xa600 to the FreeBSD disklabel type code (516E7CB4-6ECF-11D6-8FF8-00022D09712B). I'm not sure that's 100% correct, but since I can't find references to an OpenBSD disklabel GPT type code, it seems the best choice at the moment. - Added partition type for Windows Storage Spaces (E75CAF8F-F680-4CEE-AFA3-B001E56EFC2D/0x4202) - Added -O/--print-mbr option to sgdisk, enabling easier display of MBR data structures without invoking gdisk. - Updated warning message: "EBR describes a logical partition" now reads "EBR points to an EBR," which is more technically correct. - Altered warning displayed when run from Windows on non-GPT disk, because Windows on UEFI-based systems is becoming more common. - Fixed spurious "1" return value in gdisk. - Small code changes to support compilation as EFI application with the UEFI GPT fdisk library (http://sourceforge.net/projects/uefigptfdisk/?source=directory) - Added new partition type codes for Ceph (https://github.com/ceph/ceph/blob/9bcc42a3e6b08521694b5c0228b2c6ed7b3d312e/src/ceph-disk#L76-L81): 4FBD7E29-9D25-41B8-AFD0-062C0CEFF05D/0xf800 (Ceph OSD), 4FBD7E29-9D25-41B8-AFD0-5EC00CEFF05D/0xf801 (Ceph dm-crypt OSD), 45B0969E-9B03-4F30-B4C6-B4B80CEFF106/0xf802 (Ceph journal), 45B0969E-9B03-4F30-B4C6-5EC00CEFF106/0xf803 (Ceph dm-crypt journal), 89C57F98-2FE5-4DC0-89C1-F3AD0CEFF2BE/0xf804 (Ceph disk in creation), and 89C57F98-2FE5-4DC0-89C1-5EC00CEFF2BE/0xf805 (Ceph dm-crypt disk in creation) - Added new partition type codes from http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/DiscoverablePartitionsSpec/: 44479540-F297-41B2-9AF7-D131D5F0458A/0x8303 (Linux / on x86), 4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709/0x8304 (Linux / on x86-64), B921B045-1DF0-41C3-AF44-4C6F280D3FAE/0x8305 (Linux / on 64-bit ARM), 3B8F8425-20E0-4F3B-907F-1A25A76F98E8/0x8306 (Linux /srv). 0.8.10 (3/2/2014): ------------------ - Added feature to sgdisk's -A/--attributes, -c/--change-name, -t/--typecode, and -u/--partition-guid commands: If a -n/--new option with "0" as the partition number precedes these options on the command line, passin "0" as the partition number to the following options causes them to use the newly-created partition. For instance, "sgdisk -n 0:0:+550M -t 0:EF00 /dev/sda" creates a new partition with a type code of EF00. (Previous versions would ignore the "-t 0:EF00" option.) - Fixed bug that caused incorrect partition number to be displayed by sgdisk in error messages when the user specified a non-existent partition for inclusion in a hybrid MBR or conversion to a conventional MBR. - Fixed new (in 0.8.9) bug that caused a failure to create more than one hybridized partition when creating a hybrid MBR. - Fixed bug that caused gdisk and sgdisk to create hybridized partitions that ended at or above the 2^32 sector point with incorrect end values. The behavior now varies between gdisk and sgdisk: gdisk now creates hybrid partitions that begin below 2^32 sectors and that are smaller than 2^32 sectors, since this is technically legal; but gdisk displays a warning, because some OSes (such as DOS, Windows XP, OS/2, and BeOS) misbehave with such partitions. AFAIK, only Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows 7 work properly with such partitions. Because of this fact and because sgdisk is a more automated tool, it's stricter in how it handles things: It refuses to create a hybrid partition if the original ends at or above the 2^32 sector mark. 0.8.9 (2/17/2014): ------------------ - Removed dependency on libicu for UTF-16 support. - Fixed spurious "0xEE partition doesn't start on sector 1" warning in FixParts (and perhaps in other programs under some circumstances). - Added GPT regeneration command to GPT-destruction options ('z' in gdisk, -z and -Z options to sgdisk). This is done to avoid wiping out data mid-disk that might not be backup GPT data structures, which could otherwise occur if a RAID array was resized in certain ways. - Added check for an oversized 0xEE protective partition. The program now auto-repairs this condition on loading if the GPT data seem otherwise valid. This is done because I've been receiving reports of some disks (possibly from some OEM Windows 8 loads) that violate the GPT spec in this way, and gdisk was reporting write errors when saving data. - If the GPT data seem to be damaged in some way or if the disk seems to be a hybrid MBR and if the MBR partition(s) don't fit on the disk, the verify (v) function now warns of this condition, and writing the disk if it exists also displays a more specific error message about the problem. - Added new type codes (3000, 7412F7D5-A156-4B13-81DC-867174929325 and 3001, D4E6E2CD-4469-46F3-B5CB-1BFF57AFC149) for Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) boot and config partitions, respectively. - Added new type ccde (ED01, BFBFAFE7-A34F-448A-9A5B-6213EB736C22), for Lenovo's ESP-like partition. 0.8.8 (10/14/2013): ------------------- - Fixed bug that could cause segfault when passing an invalid partition number to sgdisk's -i/--info command. - Added new type code: 933AC7E1-2EB4-4F13-B844-0E14E2AEF915, or gdisk code 8302, for Linux /home partitions. This type code is used by recent versions of systemd to permit /home to be auto-mounted; see http://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd-gpt-auto-generator.html for details. - Added new type code: 9E1A2D38-C612-4316-AA26-8B49521E5A8B, or gdisk code 4100, for PowerPC PReP (PowerPC reference platform) boot. - The number of partition type codes has grown large enough that it fills an 80x24 display. I've therefore added a pause (with a prompt to hit <Enter>) to display more items after showing 21 lines in gdisk or after the screen has nearly filled with entries in cgdisk. There's no such pause/prompt in sgdisk, though. - Fine-tuned verification ('v') check for 0xEE partition that doesn't begin on sector 1: Previously, a disk with multiple 0xEE partitions would always trigger this warning. Now, the warning occurs only if NONE of the 0xEE partitions begins on sector 1. - Fixed hybrid MBR creation on disks larger than 2TiB: Previously, if one opted to create an extra partition to cover unused space following hybridized partitions, gdisk would hang. - Added check for an active/bootable 0xEE protective partition to the verify ('v') function. If found, this is not counted as an error, but it is called out to the user, since it can cause some EFIs (such as VirtualBox's EFI) to ignore the disk. 0.8.7 (7/8/2013): ----------------- - Modified Mac version so that it can work on /dev/rdisk* devices as well as /dev/disk* devices. The result is that, when using the /dev/rdisk* devices, the partition table can sometimes be re-read without removing the disk or rebooting. - Added "-a" option to cgdisk to use a ">" symbol to the left of the selected partition rather than ncurses highlighting. - Modified "converting MBR to GPT" message to clarify that the conversion is being held in memory, since some people have mistakenly assumed that a "gdisk -l" operation will change an MBR disk to a GPT disk without prompting. - Added partition type code for freedesktop.org's proposed $BOOT partition (bc13c2ff-59e6-4262-a352-b275fd6f7172; GPT fdisk type code EA00) - Adjusted alignment code when using -n or -N in sgdisk to keep the requested partition size (if specified using +###{MGT} terminology) as the requested value rather than relative to the requested start point. This gives you the requested partition size rather than be slightly smaller if sgdisk needs to adjust the start point up a bit and it prevents gaps from appearing between partitions if several are created in succession using automatic placement of the start point. - Fixed small bugs in gdisk_test.sh script. - Removed stray debug message that would appear when reading MBR disks. - Added partition type code for Intel Rapid Start partition (GUID D3BFE2DE-3DAF-11DF-BA40-E3A556D89593, code 8400), used by systems that implement Intel's Rapid Start technology. See http://blog.adios.tw/2012/10/funtoo-linux-and-intel-rapid-start.html or http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26022.html. - Added partition type code for Haiku BFS (GUID 42465331-3BA3-10F1-802A-4861696B7521; code EB00). 0.8.6 (1/9/2013): ----------------- - Fixed a bug that could cause sgdisk to crash when passing a partition number of 0 to the -t option. - Added support for building under Solaris. - Added a new check to the verification code. - Added partition type code for Sony system partition (F4019732-066E-4E12-8273-346C5641494F). I'm not entirely clear what this is used for, but it's appearing on some new Sony computers. - Tweaked hybrid MBR creation options to fix a problem that caused the main 0xEE MBR partition to NOT be created if the user told gdisk to NOT place it at the start of the disk AND IF fewer than three partitions are hybridize AND IF the user opted to create a second protective partition. - Changed default build options for Mac OS X to *NOT* use libicu, since it seems to have broken somewhere along the line. It still works on Linux, though. - Added partition type codes for VMWare ESX (FB00, FB01, and FC00). 0.8.5 (5/30/2012): ------------------ - Changed code that writes the partition table so that a disk sync operation occurs even if one or more write operations failed (but not if they all failed). This is intended to work around a bug that a user reported on a Windows system on which the write of the protective MBR failed, although everything else worked. (I suspect anti-virus software may have been blocking write access to the MBR.) - Added type codes for Midnight BSD (0xA580 - 0xA585). I used these codes because Midnight BSD uses the same 0xA5 type code as FreeBSD on MBR disks, so I'm starting Midnight BSD's numbering halfway through the 0xA5## range. 0.8.4 (3/25/2012): ------------------ - REALLY fixed Ctrl+D problems! Now gdisk terminates upon receiving a Ctrl+D. In all previous versions, it could lock itself into a CPU-hogging loop if launched via "sudo" from a terminal window that was then closed or if Ctrl+D was pressed at certain input prompts (for a partition name or sector number, for instance). 0.8.3 (3/23/2012): ------------------ - Fixed compilation problem on GCC 4.7. - Improved handling of Ctrl+D on some systems. - Added disk's name to message stating that a disk write was successful. - Fixed bug that caused creation of >2TiB partitions on 32-bit systems to be truncated in sgdisk. 0.8.2 (1/22/2012): ------------------ - Adjusted the code to support a number of partitions that's not a multiple of the number of partition table entries that fits in a sector (normally 4 per sector). The program still rounds up, when necessary, when resizing the partition table manually, but not when loading a partition table that contains a peculiar number of partitions. This helps prevent spurious error messages about CRC problems when loading some Solaris partition tables. - Fixed bugs relating to the handling of empty partitions; Solaris's ZFS tools create weird empty partitions that are legal but that gdisk wasn't handling properly. (Specifically, they sometimes have non-zero end points; gdisk assumed empty partitions had end points of 0.) - Fixed a bug that caused an infinite loop of input prompts if the user pressed Ctrl+D. - Changed gdisk's first-sector input operation to specify a sector number that's properly aligned as the default value. This eliminates the need to alter that value and notify the user of the change when the user hits "Enter" for the default value as the first partition on an empty disk (as well as in some other situations). 0.8.1 (10/1/2011): ------------------ - Fixed bug that could cause FixParts to keep a partition's assignment as logical when FixPart could not actually do so. This could happen when there are no gaps between two logical partitions. Some partitioning tools can create such configurations, but FixParts can't. Such configurations are extremely rare. I've only encountered them when logical partitions are out of order. - Added code to detect infinite loops of logical partitions when reading MBR data. When detected, the program now stops reading after the first loop, so no duplicates appear in the partition list. - Fixed bug in partition overlap detection in MBR code. - Changed GPT reading code to use the size encoded in GPT headers to determine how much of the header to use in computing a CRC, with the restriction that the size be equal to or less than the disk's sector size. This should work around problems with libefi in ZFS, which sets the header size to 512 rather than the more common 92. A caveat: If the disk's sector size is larger than the GPTHeader data structure size (512 bytes), then the rest of the sector's contents are ignored and replaced with 0 values. This could produce false positives on CRC checks on disks with over-512-byte sector sizes if the header sector is padded with something other than 0 values. - Fixed bug in new (as of 0.8.0) check that main and backup partition tables are identical on big-endian (PowerPC, etc.) hardware. 0.8.0 (9/10/2011): ------------------ - Added new return option for sgdisk: 8, which means that a replication operation (-R or --replicate) failed. Note that other operations on the same command line might still have succeeded. - Added gdisk_test.sh shell script, contributed by Guillaume Delacour. This script tests some common gdisk and sgdisk operations to be sure they're working correctly. - Enable sgdisk's -l (--load-backup) and -o (--clear) options to work even on disks that are damaged. Most other options will still be ignored, though, so if you suspect a disk may be bad and want to use one of these options, you should do so on a line by itself, followed by a separate command to perform other actions (such as adding new partitions). - Added check for mis-matched primary and backup partition tables. A mismatch is reported as a CRC error. - Added Apple Core Storage partition type code (hex code AF05, GUID 53746F72-6167-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC). - Added cgdisk program to the family. This program is a rough workalike to cfdisk, much as gdisk is a rough workalike to fdisk. See the cgdisk man page or http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/cgdisk-walkthrough.html for details about its operation. - Fixed bug that caused CHS end point for protective MBR to be set to 0xfeffff rather than the spec-mandated 0xffffff on disks over ~8GB. This is a very minor bug, since not much cares about this, and most other GPT tools get it wrong in the same way, too. 0.7.2 (6/26/2011): ------------------ - The Windows version now (finally!) generates proper GUIDs rather than a purely random number. This fixes a bug that caused Windows 7 to crash when converting a disk from MBR format (but, oddly, not when creating a fresh partition table or doing various other things). - Added a warning when an MBR partition is discarded because it's too big for the disk. - Changed warning to Windows users about the dangers of converting to GPT so that it appears only on disks that aren't already in GPT form. - Fixed bug that caused bogus "3" values to pad the ends of partition names on some disks (particularly those created by Microsoft's disk partitioning tools). - Made compilation without Unicode support possible (see README file) - Made default filesystem type code OS-dependent (based on the compilation platform). - Added new Linux-only filesystem partition type GUID code, 0FC63DAF-8483-4772-8E79-3D69D8477DE4 (8300 entry code). Also changed name of the EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7 (0700 entry code) to "Microsoft basic data"). - Fixed a bug that caused an incorrect code to be set for active/bootable partitions when generating a hybrid MBR. - Enable entry of hex codes that begin with "0x" for both GPT and MBR partitions. - Fixed bug that caused the boot loader code to be lost when creating a hybrid MBR. - Fixed bug in sector input code that could produce improper values if the user inputs ridiculously large "+" values. 0.7.1 (3/21/2011): ------------------ - Added support for proper UTF-16LE partition names rather than the "shortcut" that properly encoded only ASCII names. This support works only in Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X, though, at least for the moment. Although it's possible to compile this support into Windows when using Visual C++, it doesn't seem to work properly. Since using this feature would require distributing the ICU libraries with the Windows binary, thus bloating the binary package's size to no effect, I've disabled it in my standard Windows build, at least for now. - Added check to fixparts to keep it from operating on devices that lack an existing MBR signature. (In 0.7.0, it could write an empty MBR data structure to a device on which it was mistakenly launched.) - Fixed bug that caused the protective MBR to not be written when restoring a backup of the GPT data. - Fixed bug that caused second protective MBR partition, when created as part of a hybrid MBR, to always be of type 0xEE, even when the user specified something else. - Integrated a number of code cleanups contributed by Florian Zumbiehl. 0.7.0 (3/11/2011): ------------------ - Fixed bug that caused some types of logical partitions to be misread. - Created FixParts program, to fix problems on MBR-partitioned disks. Although this program is part of the GPT fdisk family, it is NOT used on GPT disks. - Completely redid the GPT-to-MBR code, used both for converting to MBR form and for creating hybrid MBRs. - Fixed a bug that caused gdisk to "forget" some partitions if there were numbering gaps when a conversion to MBR was aborted. - Improved CHS value creation on small (<~8GB) disks for protective MBR and when creating hybrid MBRs or converting to MBR format. Linux-only, for the moment; other platforms still produce bad CHS values on sub-~8GB disks (but few OSes care these days). - Enhanced disk replication features ('u' on the experts' menu in gdisk; -R or --replicate in sgdisk). It's now possible to replicate the partition table from a larger to a smaller disk, so long as all the partitions fit on the smaller disk. In sgdisk, the secondary GPT data are moved automatically if disk sizes don't match. In gdisk, the secondary GPT data are moved automatically if the target disk is smaller than the source disk; if the target disk is larger than the source disk, the user is given the option of making this adjustment. - Fixed --load-backup (-l) option to sgdisk, which was broken. - Changed largest drive that's not given a minimum 4 KiB alignment even when smaller alignment is detected on the disk to 300 GB. - Fixed bug that prevented aborting a partition table backup ('u' on the experts' menu) by hitting the Enter key for the device filename. - Implemented a number of code cleanups provided by Florian Zumbiehl. 0.6.14 (1/8/2011): ------------------ - Made small change to the way the start sector is interpreted if you use a "+" specification, as in "+2G" to locate a partition 2 GiB into the default range. This change makes adjustments for sector alignment less likely. - Modified sgdisk's -n (--new) option to work with relative start and end values (which the man page incorrectly stated it already did). Values of 0 for the start and end sectors refer to the first and last available sectors in the largest free block, and a partition number of 0 refers to the first available partition. - Added ChromeOS GUID values to list of recognized partition type GUIDs. 7F00 = ChromeOS kernel, 7501 = ChromeOS root, 7502 = ChromeOS reserved. Untested on actual ChromeOS system. - Tweaked APM detection to look for APM signature even if an MBR signature has already been found. Helps in diagnosis of cases in which an MBR has overwritten an APM disk. 0.6.13 (10/12/2010): -------------------- - Added notification about nonexistent partitions to hybrid MBR creation in gdisk. - Fixed bug in GPT-to-MBR conversion that could sometimes enable creation of an extended partition that overlaps a preceding partition. - Fixed bug in GPT-to-MBR conversion that prevented creation of an MBR table with logical partitions if there were four or fewer partitions. 0.6.12 (10/7/2010): ------------------- - Adjusted alignment code to use 1 MiB alignment by default for drives with other than 512-byte sector sizes. (Previous versions increased this -- for instance, to 4 MiB for drives with 2048-byte logical sector size.) - Entry of non-hexadecimal value for partition type code now causes re-prompting for a new value, fixing a recently-introduced minor bug. - Fixed bug in sector entry using K/M/G/T/P suffixes on disks with other-than-512-byte sector numbers. - Added "P" (PiB, pebibyte) suffix to suffixes accepted in entering partition sizes. - Fixed bug that caused sgdisk to segfault if fed the (invalid) "-A show" parameter. Now it terminates with a complaint about an invalid partition number 0. - Removed warning when running on big-endian hardware, since this support has been present for quite a while with no bug reports. 0.6.11 (9/25/2010): ------------------- - Added -F (--first-aligned-in-largest) option to sgdisk. This option is a variant on -f (--first-in-largest); it returns the number of the first sector that will be used in the largest free area, given the current alignment value (set via -a/--set-alignment). - Streamlined GUID code entry in gdisk; it no longer offers the option to enter GUIDs in separate segments. - The -t option to sgdisk now accepts GUID values as well as the sgdisk/gdisk-specific two-byte hex codes. - Added check that the protective 0xEE MBR partition begins on sector 1 to the verify function. If it doesn't, a warning message is displayed, but it doesn't count as an error. - Added check for overlapping MBR partitions to verify function (gdisk "v" function on all menus; sgdisk -v/--verify function). Also warns about multiple MBR 0xEE partitions (causes problems in some OSes). - Added check to GPT-to-MBR and hybrid MBR creation options to prevent creation of disks with duplicate partitions. When told to create a disk with duplicates, sgdisk now aborts with the error message "Problem creating MBR!" When attempting to create a hybrid MBR with duplicates, gdisk silently drops duplicate partitions, leaving fewer than requested. Creating duplicates should not be possible in sgdisk when converting to MBR form. 0.6.10 (8/22/2010): ------------------- - Enable disk-wipe (-z and -Z) and verification (-v) operations in sgdisk even if the disk is badly damaged. - Added support for setting attributes in sgdisk (-A/--attributes option) in sgdisk. - Fixed bug that created backwards attribute field values (bit #2 was entered as bit #61, etc.). - Fixed bug that caused creation of hybrid MBR to wipe out the MBR's boot code. - Added ability to save partition table from one device to another (gdisk: 'u' on experts' menu; sgdisk: -R or --replicate option). - Fixed inaccessible -C/--recompute-chs option in sgdisk. 0.6.9 (7/4/2010): ------------------ - Fixed minor error in sgdisk man page (--largest-new option requires a partition number). - Fixed major bug in hybrid MBR creation, which caused incorrect protective partition end point settings and occasionally other problems. 0.6.8 (5/23/2010): ------------------ - Added tests to see if the file to be opened is a directory, character device, FIFO, or socket; program now terminates if any of these conditions is met. (Linux/FreeBSD/OS X only.) Thanks to Justin Maggard for this patch. - Added 'f' option on gdisk's experts' menu (-G/--randomize-guids in sgdisk). This option randomizes the disk's GUID and all partitions' GUIDs. Intended for use after cloning a disk with a utility that copies the GUIDs intact (such as a raw dd copy) if you want each disk copy to have its own set of GUIDs. - Added -u/--partition-guid and -U/--disk-guid options to sgdisk. These are the equivalents of the 'g' and 'c' options, respectively, on the gdisk experts' menu: They enable adjusting an individual partition's GUID or a disk's GUID. The GUID may be either a fully specified GUID value or 'R' or 'r' to set a random GUID value. - Fixed compile problem for FreeBSD (its math library lacks a log2() function). Also created separate Makefile.freebsd with a couple of FreeBSD-specific options. - Added -N (--largest-new) command to sgdisk. This command creates a single partition that fills the largest single unpartitioned block of space on the disk. - Fixed sgdisk man page error: the --change-name option was incorrectly listed as --change. - Added 'h' option to gdisk experts' menu (-C or --recompute-chs in sgdisk) to recompute all protective/hybrid MBR CHS values. This option is intended to work around a bug in at least one BIOS that prevents the computer from booting when the GPT-mandated (but technically illegal) 0xFFFFFF CHS value is used as the end point for a protective MBR. The recomputed values will be legal (e.g., 0xFEFFFF instead of 0xFFFFFF), but incorrect in GPT terms, and will therefore enable at least one BIOS to boot with a GPT disk. See http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/bios.html for all I know about BIOS/GPT incompatibilities. 0.6.7 (5/1/2010): ----------------- - Undid earlier change, with version 0.6.4, that wiped the MBR boot loader when doing MBR-to-GPT conversions. I've now become skeptical that MBR boot loaders were causing any real problems on GPT disks, so I'm going back to the philosophy of leaving as much alone as possible. - Fixed bug that caused incorrect reporting of free space on 0-size disks (e.g., files of 0 length passed as disk images). - Fixed bug that caused segfault on some invalid disks - Fixed bug that caused incorrect partition numbers to be displayed for some verify problems. 0.6.6 (3/21/2010): ----------------- - Added support for the "no block IO protocol" (referred to as "hide from EFI" in GPT fdisk) and "legacy BIOS bootable" attribute bits. See Table 19 of the UEFI 2.3 specification (p. 153) for details. - Changed the sequence in which GPT data structures are written to disk; backups are now written first, followed by the main structures. This is as recommended in the UEFI 2.3 specification, since it's safer in the extremely unlikely event that a RAID array's size is increased and there's a power outage mid-write. (If the main structures are written first in this case, they'll point to data that's not yet been written; but by writing the backups first, the old main structures will still point to the valid old backup structures.) - Protective MBRs now have disk signatures of 0x00000000, to better conform with GPT as described in the UEFI 2.3 specification. - Added alignment information to the summary data produced by the 'p' main-menu option in gdisk or the -p option to sgdisk. - More alignment changes: GPT fdisk now attempts to determine the alignment value based on alignment of current partitions, if any are defined. If no partitions are defined, a default value of 2048 is set. If the computed value is less than 8 on drives over about 596GiB, it's reset to 8, since the drive might be a WD Advanced Format unit that requires an 8-sector (or larger power-of-2) alignment value for best performance. The 2048-sector default provides better alignment in some RAID configurations. - Changed behavior when a backup restore fails. Previously, GPT fdisk would create a fresh blank set of partitions. Now it does so only if the failure occurs when interpreting the backup's contents; if the user typed the wrong filename, the in-memory data structures aren't touched. 0.6.5 (3/7/2010): ----------------- - Added tests to verify ('v') function and to pre-save checks to look for partitions that end before they begin or that are too big for their disks. - Fixed a bug that could cause spurious data to appear in a grown partition table. - Added ability to convert some or all partitions to logical partitions in GPT-to-MBR conversion. This feature is limited by the fact that at least one free sector must exist immediately prior to each logical partition, so it won't do much good if partitions are crammed together. It should be possible to convert back to MBR any disk that started that way, provided no partitions were added or resized when the disk was in GPT form; and disks that were partitioned with Apple's Disk Utility or other tools that insert unpartitioned space should also be convertible. CAUTION: THE LOGICAL PARTITION CREATION FEATURE DOESN'T TRY TO ALIGN PARTITIONS OR PARTITION HEADER DATA TO CYLINDER BOUNDARIES! It's conceivable that some older OSes or utilities will object to these disks, although Linux, OS X, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 all seem happy with them. - Fixed bug that caused creation of 0-length file if an incorrect device filename was typed. - The gdisk program now prompts for a device filename if it's called with no options. This enables gdisk to do something useful if it's launched by double-clicking its icon in a GUI environment. - Added workaround for bug in some versions of MinGW that caused the program to garble input sector numbers. - The Windows version now works on disks with over-512-byte sectors. Tested on a magneto-optical (MO) drive with 2048-byte sectors. - Added -D (--display-alignment) option to sgdisk, to display sector alignment value (by default, 1 for sub-800GiB disks and 8 for disks over that size). - Fixed bug in computation of CHS geometries for protective MBR. This is non-critical, since most modern utilities ignore the CHS geometries. Concerned users can use the 'n' option on the experts' menu to build new protective MBRs with the new algorithm, if desired. (Note that GNU Parted, at least, gets this wrong, too.) - Fixed memory-allocation bug when reading GPT disks with partition tables with over 128 entries; could cause program to crash on startup. 0.6.4-2 (2/20/2010): -------------------- Note: Neither of the following changes affects actual program code, so I've left the version number in the program at 0.6.4. - Altered Makefile to pass user's compiler and linker environment variables through. - Added #include to gpttext.cc to enable it to compile on the latest GCC versions (it was failing on at least some 4.4.x compilers). 0.6.4 (2/19/2010): ------------------- - Added -m (--gpttombr) option to sgdisk, enabling conversion of GPT disks to MBR format, with a limit of four partitions total, and of course without overcoming the 2TiB limit. - Added -h (--hybrid) option to sgdisk, enabling creation of hybrid MBRs. Fewer options are available in sgdisk than in gdisk, though, in order to keep the user interface manageable. - Fixed off-by-one bug in specification of partition when using the -T (--transform-bsd) option in sgdisk. - Changed the code to create a new MBR unique disk signature whenever a new protective MBR is generated (when doing an MBR-to-GPT conversion, when using the 'n' option on the experts' menu, or when using the 'o' option on the main menu, for example). Previous versions attempted to preserve the existing MBR disk signature in most cases, but this resulted in values of 0x00000000 whenever an empty disk was partitioned, and often in other cases, too. Better to risk changing this value too often than to leave multiple disks with 0x00000000 values, I think. - Added transpose ('t' on experts' menu in gdisk; or -r or --transpose in sgdisk) command to enable fine-tuning partition order without doing a full sort. - Added code to clear the MBR boot loader when doing an MBR-to-GPT conversion. (This was already done in full-disk BSD-to-GPT conversions.) This is done because I've seen a few problem reports that make me think some MBR boot loaders freak out and hang the system when they encounter GPT disks, and/or they attempt to load a second-stage boot loader stored in what is now GPT territory, causing a system hang. Since MBR boot loaders don't work on GPT disks anyhow (even GRUB needs to be reinstalled), this new wiping behavior shouldn't cause any problems, and may prevent a few. - Fixed bug in Windows version that prevented saving backup files. - Fixed bug that caused second and subsequent partition numbers in prompts in hybrid MBR conversion procedure to be displayed in hexadecimal. - Fixed very obscure potential bug in hybrid MBR/GPT synchronization when deleting partitions; code wasn't matching partition lengths correctly, which would only affect partitions that start at the same point but have different lengths in MBR vs. GPT. - Fixed bug in the -E option to sgdisk; it was actually returning the last free sector, not the last free sector in the largest free block. - Fixed bug in -t option to sgdisk; it was corrupting partition type codes. - Fixed minor alignment bug in partition summary list ('p' from any menu) when partition sizes are between 1000 and 1024 units. - Backup restore function ('l' on recovery & transformation menu) now accepts both backups generated by GPT fdisk and backups created by a direct copy (via dd, etc.) of the MBR, main GPT header, and main GPT partition table, in that order. ("dd if=/dev/sda of=backup.gpt bs=512 count=34" will do this on Linux for a disk with a typical-sized GPT table of 128 entries.) 0.6.3 (2/3/2010): ------------------ - Fixed serious data corruption bug on big-endian (PowerPC and similar) systems. - Changed several GPT fdisk Solaris type codes to correct a duplicate - Corrected error in GPT fdisk type codes for NetBSD LFS and NetBSD RAID; they were identical, but I've now changed NetBSD RAID to A906, which is unique. - Added GUID for IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) partition type code. Somewhat arbitrarily set it to use the 7501 number (MBR code 0x75 is used by IBM PC/IX, so it's at least the right company, by my loose numbering rules....). - Improved GUID generation. Prior versions generated completely random numbers for GUIDs. This works, but is technically a violation of the spec. Unix versions now employ libuuid to generate GUIDs in a more correct way. The Windows version still generates random numbers, though. - Turned PartTypes class into a derived class of GUIDData, and renamed it to PartType. - Created new GUIDData class, to replace the original GUIDData struct. 0.6.2 (1/29/2010): ------------------ - The change-type ('t' on main menu) option now changes the partition's name *IF* the current name is the generic one for the partition type. If the current name is not the generic name, it is NOT changed. - Fixed bug that caused new protective MBR to not be created when the MBR was invalid and the GPT was damaged and the user opts to try to use the GPT data. - Enabled default partition type code of 0700 when creating partitions or changing their type codes. (Type 0700, Linux/Windows data, is set if the user hits the Enter key alone.) - Fixed bug in sort ('s' on main menu) option that caused partition numbers to begin at more than 1 if the original partition list had too many empty partitions before the last one defined. - Improved code to determine which partition table to load in case of CRC mismatches between the partition tables and the stored CRC values in the headers. - Compiles using MinGW (http://www.mingw.org) to create a Windows binary. - Moved all disk I/O functions to the new DiskIO class. This helps with the Windows port; it uses diskio-windows.cc for Windows-specific code, diskio-unix.cc for the Linux, FreeBSD, and OS X code, and diskio.cc for cross-platform disk I/O code. - Changed BSD disklabel detection code to be more correct (I think). This change has no effect on my test disks, but I hope it'll work better on disks with sector sizes other than 512 or 2048. 0.6.1 (1/20/2010): ------------------ - Fixed bug that returned incorrect disk size on 32-bit versions of FreeBSD. - Fixed bug that prevented FreeBSD version from working on disk image files. - Fixed bug that caused BSD disklabel conversion to fail. 0.6.0 (1/15/2010): ------------------ - Fixed bug that caused the convert to MBR function to fail. - Added support for disks with other than 512-byte sectors. - Created embryonic sgdisk program. - Fixed bug that caused relative sector numbers entered by users (e.g, "+128M") to be misinterpreted as from the start of the range rather than from the default value. 0.5.3 (1/4/2010): ----------------- - Fixed bug in display of GUIDs when compiled with some versions of GCC. - Eliminated warnings caused by additional checks in latest versions of GCC. These warnings were harmless, but to eliminate them I've added more error checking on disk I/O. - Eliminated unnecessary warnings about potential data loss if the program was launched with the -l option or if writes aren't possible. - Added code to set the partition boundary value based on the physical sector size. (FindAlignment() function.) This function, however, works only on Linux, and then only if the BLKPBSZGET ioctl is defined. This ioctl is new in kernel 2.6.32 or thereabouts. 0.5.2 (12/31/2009): ------------------- - Modified partition creation function to begin partitions on 8-sector boundaries by default. This improves performance on the new Western Digital Advanced Format drives. The new 'd' and 'l' options on the experts' menu display and change, respectively, the boundary size. - Tweaked code to produce fewer warnings on the latest versions of GCC. 0.5.1: ------ - Made some minor edits to the man page. - Incorporated RPM .spec file changes contributed by Scott Collier (boodle11@gmail.com). - Changed method of locating and loading backup GPT data, to use the main header's pointer, if it's valid, rather than seeking to the end of the disk. - Added 'e' option (relocate backup GPT data structures) to the experts' menu. - Fixed bug that prevented recovery of partitions in case of partially damaged GPT data (bad main and good backup or bad backup and good main header, for instance). 0.5.0: ------ - Added GPT-to-MBR conversion function. It's very limited, but potentially useful in some cases. - Fixed bug that caused incorrect file sizes to be reported on 32-bit Linux, thus causing problems when editing partition tables in disk images or when loading GPT backup files. - Fixed bug that caused bogus CRC error reports when loading backup GPT data. - Reorganized menus. There are now three: the main menu, the experts' menu, and the recovery & transformation menu. The last of these has most of the items that had been on the earlier versions' experts' menu. - Added ability to re-load the MBR and generate a fresh GPT from it. This is normally identical to quitting and re-running the program, but it could be handy if, say, the GPT partitions on a hybrid configuration are badly messed up; this will enable using the hybridized partitions as the starting point for a new GPT setup. - The program now generates CHS values for hybrid and GPT-to-MBR conversion MBRs. For the moment, the assumption is the maximum number of heads and sectors per track (255 and 63, respectively), although the bulk of the code supports other values -- it'd just be awkward to enter the data in the user interface. - Fixed minor display bug that caused number of sectors on the disk to be shown as 0 on large disks when running 32-bit binaries. - Reverted 0.4.2's zap (destroy GPT) changes, since I don't want to wipe out a valid MBR if the user created that MBR over an older GPT without first properly wiping out the GPT, and the user now wants to wipe out the GPT. - Reformatted and edited the man page. Aside from edits related to the preceding program changes, I've altered the markup slightly and trimmed much of the more tutorial information from the man page to better conform to typical terse man page style. 0.4.2: ------ - Code cleanup. - Fixed very small formatting bug in display of hex code when a match isn't found when converting from an MBR/gdisk hex code to a GUID type code. - Added the ability to work on disk image files (raw files for virtual machines, backup images, etc.). The program assumes that all such disk image files have 512-byte sectors. - Added verification prompt to 'o' main-menu option to avoid accidental erasures of all partitions. - The "destroy GPT data structures" option ('z' on the experts' menu) now also destroys all EFI GPT (0xEE) partitions in the MBR. - Added an extra warning to the "destroy GPT data structures" option if an APM or BSD disklabel was detected on the disk. - Added a buffer flush after destroying GPT data structures, to get the OS to read the new (empty or MBR-only) partition table. - Fixed bug that allowed entry of nonexistent partition numbers when creating a hybrid MBR. 0.4.1: ------ - Code cleanup/re-organization - Partition creation function ('n' on main menu) now uses the start of the largest available chunk of free space rather than the first available sector as the default starting sector number. This should enable easier partition creation if there are small bits of free space on the disk. - You can now specify the end point of a partition by using a minus sign, in which case the end point is the default value minus the specified size. For instance, "-200M" creates a partition that ends 200MiB before the default end point. - You can now specify the start point of a partition by using a plus or minus sign, in which case the start point is the specified distance from the start (+) or end (-) of free space. This is exactly the same as the new rules for entry of the end point, except that the default value is set differently. - Deleting a partition now checks for a matching hybrid MBR partition, and if one is found, it's deleted. Any empty space that then surrounds the 0xEE (EFI GPT) MBR partitions is then added to the nearby 0xEE partition. If no non-0xEE partitions are left, a fresh protective MBR is generated. - Added hybrid MBR consistency check to the verify ('v') option and to pre-write checks. If non-0xEE/non-0x00 MBR partitions without corresponding GPT partitions are found, the user is warned. This finding does NOT prevent writing the partition table, though. - Added non-destructive write test when opening the device file, in order to detect the problem with FreeBSD being unable to write to disks with mounted partitions (or other potential problems). 0.4.0: ------ - Added support for BSD disklabels. The program can now convert disks that use "raw" disklabels, with the caveat that the first partition will almost certainly need to be deleted because it'll overlap the main GPT header; and convert disklabels contained within a GPT (or a former MBR, converted to GPT) partition. In the latter case, the 'b' main menu option is used. - Added support for compiling on FreeBSD. - Fixed bug that could cause crashes or incomplete sorts when sorting the partition table. - New partitions, including converted ones, now take on the name of the partition type as a default name. - Reorganized some code; created a separate C++ class for GPT partitions (GPTPart), which replaced a struct and enabled moving code from the bloated GPTData class into GPTPart. - Fixed a bug that produced spurious warnings about unknown sector sizes when loading a backup file. 0.3.5: ------ Note: This version was not officially publicly released; I wanted to test the big-endian support while developing 0.4.0. - Tweaked the disk type identification code to warn users to re-sync their hybrid MBRs when one is detected. - Tweaked MBR-reading code to ignore 0xEE (EFI GPT) partitions. This will only have an effect on a poorly partitioned MBR disk that contains an inappropriate EFI GPT partition, or when attempting to recover a corrupted disk by using the hybrid MBR for data recovery. - Added big-endian (PowerPC, etc.) support! - Added code to identify and warn of the presence of an Apple Partition Map (APM) on the disk. - Enabled MBR conversion code to handle multiple logical partitions. 0.3.4: ------ - Fixed bug that enabled (possibly accidental) entry of MBR type codes of 0x00 in GPTData::MakeHybrid(). The fix also enables entry of default type code by pressing the Enter key when prompted. Applied a similar fix to the entry of the type code for the second protective partition, if one is used. - Fixed a typo: "sectors" was spelled "sectprs" in one spot! - Fixed bug that caused default entry for end sector to be refused if an initial value using a plus sign (e.g., "+20G") was also refused. 0.3.3: ------ - Gave users control over the way MBR partitions are assigned to slots in a hybrid MBR setup; the original method (putting the 0xEE partition after the real partitions) works well for non-boot disks, but both GRUB and GRUB2 become confused by this type of setup, so it needs changing. - Changed "blocks" to "sectors" in GPT and MBR table displays. - Added "Boot" column to MBR table display; shows an asterisk (*) when the partition's status is bootable. 0.3.2: ------ - Changed __DARWIN_UNIX03 to __APPLE__ as code to enable MacOS X support. - Added the ability to create a hybrid MBR ('h' on experts' menu). This was motivated by my discovery that Windows 7 remains brain-dead when it comes to the ability to boot from a GPT disk, at least on BIOS-based machines. - Added 'z' option to experts' menu, to destroy GPT data structures and exit. The intent is to use this feature to enable subsequent partitioning of the disk using fdisk or other GPT-unaware tools. (GNU Parted will wipe the GPT data structures itself when you create a new MBR ["msdos disklabel," in Parted parlance], so using Parted is another option.) - Slightly altered the effect of the 'o' command on the main menu. It now blanks out the protective MBR, as well as the GPT data. 0.3.1: ------ - Added Mac OS X support, provided as a patch by David Hubbard (david.c.hubbard@gmail.com). - Fixed bug in disksize() function on Mac OS. (Possibly dependent on the kernel and/or GCC version.) The disk size, of type uint64_t, was not being passed correctly, so I reorganized the function to return it as the function's return value rather than as a parameter. This seems to work OK on my Mac OS test system and on both 32- and 64-bit Linux systems. - Fixed off-by-one bug in GPTData::FindLastAvailable(). - Fixed bug that caused display of options after a disk-write error. - Fixed several incorrect MacOS X partition type GUIDs, thanks to Yves Blusseau (1otnwmz02@sneakemail.com). 0.3.0: ------ - Changed version number to 0.3.0, reflecting the fact that I've received no significant bug reports and so am elevating the program to "beta" status. This change also entailed altering the warning the program displays when saving partition table changes. - Fixed minor bug in CHS geometry of the protective MBR's type EE partition (was producing 0x000200 as the start value, but should be 0x000100). Should be a non-critical bug since the protective MBR partition definition is only there to keep MBR-only disk utilities from messing with the disk. - Added ability to enter GUIDs as single massive strings rather than in chunks. 0.2.2: ------ - Added #include directives required to compile the program using GCC 4.4.0. 0.2.1: ------ - Fixed partition numbering problem in reports of partition overlaps in verification function. - Fixed 1-sector partition size problem when creating new partitions (partitions were 1 sector too big when using the +size option). - Changed BytesToSI() to display values in bytes without decimal points (e.g., "512 bytes" rather than "512.0 bytes"). - Added GPTData class member functions to retrieve GPT data structure locations on disk; used in my internal-use-only GPT-wiping program. - Eliminated the "a reboot is recommended" notice after writing the partition table. - Added notice after sorting the partition table to the effect that editing /etc/fstab and/or the boot loader files may be required. - Fixed bug in MBR-reading function that caused 0x0f (Win95 LBA) and 0x85 (Linux extended) extended partitions to not be read. - Fixed bug in GetLastSector() (in support.cc) that would have prevented correct user entry of over-32-bit sector numbers on 32-bit systems. - Made some changes/corrections to the partition type list in parttypes.cc. Most of these were based on newly-discovered MBR type codes for Apple (Mac OS X) filesystems. - General code cleanup (setting explicit casts, etc.) 0.2.0: ------ - Initial semi-public release
