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Hello all, I have been searching everywhere for this, I think I found it once before, but lost it when I was moving. I am using a advanced format drive which means I need the 2mb boot partition labelled ef02.
The problem I am having is when it comes to installing grub I was sure that you have to add some sort of line for it to use the ef02 partition.
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An Advanced Format drive is one that uses physical sectors that are 4096 bytes in size, rather than the older standard of 512 bytes. Most (in fact, all, the last I heard) such drives present the illusion of using 512-byte sectors for compatibility purposes, though.
The gdisk partition type code of EF02 refers to a BIOS Boot Partition, which holds boot loader code for GRUB on disks that are partitioned using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning system. Note that this partition is only necessary when using GRUB on a BIOS-booted GPT disk. If you've got an MBR disk or if you're booting in EFI mode, you don't need this partition.
These two issues are entirely unrelated. It's possible to use MBR (which has no equivalent to GPT's BIOS Boot Partition) on an Advanced Format disk, and it's possible to use a BIOS Boot Partition on a disk that's not an Advanced Format model.
As to GRUB installation, you should not need to issue any special command to get it to find the BIOS Boot Partition; it should find it automatically.
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Exactly what srs5694 said. This means that needing a BIOS boot partition only comes from the type of motherboard your computer has, not from the type of drive; the difference is whether that motherboard is equipped for UEFI (newer) or BIOS (older). In addition, there are some motherboards (mine included) that are able to use either one. On those motherboards, you decide what to use based on (a) if you have other systems installed that impose requirements, or (b) your preference. I ended up choosing the older type of BIOS because installation seems easier.
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Exactly what srs5694 said.
Indeed.
This means that needing a BIOS boot partition only comes from the type of motherboard your computer has, not from the type of drive; the difference is whether that motherboard is equipped for UEFI (newer) or BIOS (older). In addition, there are some motherboards (mine included) that are able to use either one. On those motherboards, you decide what to use based on (a) if you have other systems installed that impose requirements, or (b) your preference. I ended up choosing the older type of BIOS because installation seems easier.
Not really. As srs5694 indeed said, it depends on whether you are booting uefi or bios and the type of partition map you use when formatting your drive. Even if you boot in bios mode, you don't need the partition unless you also use a GPT map. If you use MBR, the partition is unnecessary (and cannot be created anyway).
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Also, the BIOS Boot Partition is used by GRUB 2. AFAIK, no other boot loader touches this partition, and several are available that work with GPT -- GRUB Legacy, SYSLINUX, and (I think) LILO all work with GPT on BIOS-based computers, but don't need the BIOS Boot Partition. Each of these has its own needs or limitations, though. For instance, SYSLINUX requires that a boot attribute ("legacy_boot" in libparted-based tools, or "legacy BIOS bootable" in gdisk) be set on a partition and a second-stage boot loader be installed in that partition's boot code area. GRUB Legacy and LILO don't need either of these features, but are more susceptible to breakage should files be moved on the boot partition.
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