I'm struggling with an issue on my Debian 12 (bookworm) system. I have an SSD that was previously used in a Windows machine, so it has an old MBR partition. I want to switch it to a GPT table and create a few new partitions. While using `parted`, it seems to work fine and warns me that I will lose existing data, but when I finish and exit `parted`, the SSD is still showing the old MBR table. Even after running `partprobe`, it doesn't change. I'm not sure what's going wrong. The SSD passes SMART tests, and I can access the files on the NTFS partition without issues, but I feel a bit lost here.
3 Answers
You might want to give GParted a shot if you're comfortable with it! It’s a user-friendly GUI tool for managing disks and partitions, which can sometimes help with issues that the CLI tools don’t handle gracefully. You can install it with `sudo apt install gparted`.
Quick update: It feels like this SSD is acting as if it’s locked somehow. While I can read everything, I noticed that if I make any changes, they don’t stick after unmounting and remounting. I get a message about an unclean file system when I mount the NTFS partition, which may be affecting things. It’s just frustrating to deal with!
Have you tried running `wipefs --all /dev/sda` (or your device name)? This could clear any old signatures and maybe get it to accept the GPT. Just be super careful and double-check the device to avoid data loss. If this doesn't work, the SSD might be on its way out.
Does the old partition table persist even after a reboot? Sometimes, the changes don’t apply until a full restart. It could help rule out if it’s a caching issue.
Yeah, I tried rebooting but the problem still exists. It seems like there isn't an issue with my machine since `parted` works fine on other drives.
I don’t have X11 set up, though. Isn’t GParted just the visual version of `parted`?