How To Format Using Minitool Partition Wizard
Benita Vandervoort
I would recommend using GPT as opposed to MBR since this disk drive is over 2TB. On the other hand, it is possible an independent application will be able to partition this disk drive as desired in a Microsoft Windows system or an Apple Mac OS system.
This is quite unusual. I would suggest performing a complete drive test using Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics for Microsoft Windows, then proceeding to write zeros at a low level in order to completely destroy any residual partitioning configuration. Please visit the following link for additional information:
I already downloadedfrom WD support site WD Drive Utilities, and performed the SMART status check, quick drive self-test and full media scan to detect bad sectors. All three tests passed (the last one took many hours). I assume this application is the same tool you mention in your post (even though slightly different name).
Next, I installed Minitool Partition Wizard since Windows doesn't change partition IDs (that I know of), and I needed /boot and / as type 83 for installing linux. I also needed my shared partition for TrueCrypt/NTFS, so I created the following out of the free space:
I'll shorten the middle of the story, which involved being unable to get EasyBCD to chainload to my logical /boot partition. There was a lot of creating/deleting/formatting of volumes involved from Minitool but nothing else (e.g. no writing to the MBR).
Somewhere along the way, I stopped being able to create logical partitions in Minitool. I could add them to the action queue, click apply, it would say "Operation successful," but the space would show back up as unallocated. Like this:
Back in Windows, if I click on D:, I get prompted to format it and told that it's not a recognized format. How about Minitool? Seems just fine and it can even see the contents (right click D: -> Explore)!
So far, I've found no scenario at all where both Windows disk utility and Minitool agree. I did have a successful dual booting system. If I create the partition table with fdisk, it appears that Windows is happy to boot to C:, and Arch Linux is happy to boot to /dev/sda5 (logical for /boot). It's just that the two of them don't seem to recognize a partition as valid at the same time.
A complication to this issue is that the laptop is a work computer that came with McAfee Endpoint Encryption (EEPC). There is no pre-boot authentication, but I believe some parts of the MBR may still be encrypted. The partition table apparently is not, as fdisk didn't prevent me from booting (I made a backup of 512MB of /dev/sda using dd before trying that, btw). I add this, as I did run across some McAfee docs stating that fixmbr should not be used (can't re-find it at the moment).
I'm trying to decide if this is fixable or if I should just ask to have the drive re-imaged. I just got it about a week ago and haven't restored all my files yet (since I haven't been able to create a shared partition either with or without encryption), so this is the ideal time to bite the bullet and submit a ticket.
My undesired workaround to avoid giving up the laptop for half a day and starting all over would be to get a 64G tiny flash drive and leave it permanently in a port. I'd use it either for the encrypted TrueCrypt/NTFS storage or Arch.
Encryption tools sometimes store data in places that conflict with boot loaders or that might cause partitioning tools to misbehave. My hunch is that this is what's causing your problems, but I can't be sure of that.
My first suggestion is to consider using virtualization rather than a dual-boot setup. If you can run Linux inside Windows or vice-versa, that will mean that you'll just need to make one OS (and its encryption tools) happy with your setup, not two of them. This also means you won't need to find a cross-platform encryption tool, which may broaden the scope of what you might consider.
My second suggestion is to keep trying other partitioning tools. You might try parted or GParted (both based on libparted) on the Linux side; and there are other third-party partitioning tools on the Windows side. It's conceivable that one of these tools will make everything else happy.
D: and F: are partitions created with Windows, so it appears that they're automatically encrypted. A workaround I'm considering is to format with Ext4 and perhaps if they are non-Windows-native, McAfee will leave them alone.
This definitely explains why I can't mount them in Linux. I'm still a bit confused as to why 3rd party partition tools don't necessarily recognize them. Perhaps there's some auxiliary data/info/partition table used by Windows/McAfee to know what the "real" format of the file systems are. Minitool apparently doesn't have access to that, or isn't doing it properly as it doesn't see them as formatted.
Anyway, perhaps I shouldn't speculate on the exact reason why; the main point was to confirm that this is almost certainly encryption related. My former laptop had the same setup, so perhaps Endpoint Encryption was updated or it's policy changed to encrypt non-system partitions. This wasn't previously the case.
It appears that a volume is not formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but I did not see that in your steps to format the drive. I thought that "Erasing" the drive was all that was needed, and that it would format as part of that operation.
Do I have it right that your guide 6185 creates the .dmg on the desktop, then after all steps are completed, I then need to convert from .dmg to .raw, then burn to USB from Apple desktop using Rufus on a PC or something like that?
I do have another Hackintosh that you helped me create a few years ago, that works perfectly fine with your software. It is running Mojave. So I do have an "Apple" computer in my house. I am planning on using this one at work, as I am a technology coordinator at a high school in Chicago that has many Mac computers. Want my computer to be a dual architecture for that reason.
I have 2 drives, one for windows and one for hackintosh. When I click on "Show All Disks" it shows the two partitions of the hackintosh disk: One is the APFS container which holds the main storage and then there's a 16MB small partition where I should put the EFI folder, but it appears as "Microsoft reserved" and I can't mount it.
Several weeks back, I reviewed AOMEI Partition Assistant, a prettydecent disk and partition management software. Now, I am going to do it again, test and review another programdesigned to make the disk handling tasks easier for Windows folks. This one is called MiniTool Partition Wizard.
Much like before, I was contacted by the vendor and asked to check their product. And so here we are. I willtry to avoid too many comparisons to AOMEI or GParted, but it is inevitable. Tested,version 8.1.1, professional edition. Let's go.
The installation and setup are trivial. At the end of the process, you will need to provide your key, if you'vepurchased a non-free version. Pretty simple and straightforward. The GUI is very similar to what PartitionAssistant offers. Partition Wizard has a simple, clean interface. Your disks and partitions are shows in theright pane, there's a sidebar with quick-action operations, which change based on the disk/partition type, pluswizards to help you through the tasks, and a very simple application toolbar that gives you the ability to undoand apply them, as well as several links to other resources. The contents of the taskbar change contextually.
To see what this program can do, I connected a 640GB external My Passport disk to the laptop, and refreshed thelist of devices. The disk comes with a large extended partition populated with EXT4 and NTFS logicalpartitions.
As you expect, there are tons of tasks available to the user. You need to be at least a little bitknowledgeable to use the tool to good effect and without causing any harm to your data. Moreover, the abundanceof options can be somewhat overwhelming, although the design and logic of the main interface are ratherintuitive.
For example, you may be interesting copying disks or partitions. You can do this yourself or use the wizard toguide you through the process. Either way, you need to be careful, because it's very easy to botch and losedata.
Another interesting feature is the ability to convert standard MBR disks to GPT, but it won't let you do thaton system disks, to avoid ending up with an unbootable machine. You can also run surface tests and check yourdisks. Useful before doing any cloning or other sensitive operations. You can also align partitions forimproved performance and change cluster sizes. Quite useful.
More trivial tasks include the typical resize/move, merging, splitting, and format. Now, here's a ratherinteresting thing, and take a look at the sidebar. For NTFS partitions, the available list of operations ismuch wider. With Linux EXT4 partitions, you have a limited subset of tasks. But the weird thing is, MiniToolPartition Wizard does support creation of EXT4 filesystems, which AOMEI Partition Assistant did not support,however it seems you cannot do many of the post operations afterwards, which AOMEI Partition Assistant didsupport. So it seems you will mostly have to work with FAT or NTFS, and leave Linux tasks to other tools.
Not all is perfect. For example, if you want recovery options and bootable ISO, the wizard will actually takeyou to the Internet, for separate downloads, which is clunky. Moreover, professional data recovery costs money,while the bootable edition is free. However, you can try to recover the partition table from within the tool.This is a little bit confusing, and there should be a better way of introducing additional software andfeatures from the vendor, as it can feel like cheap marketing.
There are also a few tiny typos in the wizard menus and prompts. For example, after you've completed anoperation, the wording used in the notification is somewhat awkward. Worth considering for the next patch orfix or whatnot.
MiniTool Partition Wizard also recommends turning power saving options in Windows before handling disks, andthis is actually not a bad suggestion. Closing programs also makes sense to avoid data corruption, as filehandles will necessarily be orphaned.