Mavericks install on MBR partition, is it safe?

[soundgals]

Hi I'm new to Mac Rumours and decided to join because I saw similar posts on this subject.

I was surprised to see the message that Mavericks couldn't install on my mid 2010 Mac Mini over Mountain Lion, because the internal HD is not using the GUID partition table. Then I read some posts here and elsewhere where it was explained that when Bootcamp has been used to install Windows a kind of Hybrid GUID/MBR partition table is created. The Mavericks installer doesn't recognise this as GUID.

I've followed some instructions to create a Mavericks install bootable thumb drive, now I'm wondering if it's safe to try to use this to install Mavericks from there onto my internal HD.

Firstly, I'm not sure if it will work at all. Then if it does, is it likely to be problematic? Am I likely to suffer to data loss or other problems?

Of course, I'll make sure I have an up to date back-up first.

Can anyone advise if I should even attempt this?

Thanks,

Geoff

 

[Quackers]

The hybrid MBR created by Bootcamp should not have any effect on a fresh installation of OSX.

What is it that you want to do exactly? Do you want to remove everything from your disc and start again?

 

[soundgals]

I just want to install Mavericks over Mountain Lion. I don't want to start afresh and I want to keep my Bootcamp partitions for Windows.

 

[Quackers]

I'm afraid that's something I haven't tried, so can't comment further.
I'm surprised that you're getting a message regarding an MBR disc though. If Mountain Lion is booting ok from the same disc then you must have a GPT disc (admittedly with a hybrid MBR, though that shouldn't be a problem afaik).

 

[soundgals]

I'm afraid that's something I haven't tried, so can't comment further.
I'm surprised that you're getting a message regarding an MBR disc though. If Mountain Lion is booting ok from the same disc then you must have a GPT disc (admittedly with a hybrid MBR, though that shouldn't be a problem afaik).

Thanks. I'm still too nervous to try it

Is this an attempt by Apple to gradually back away from support for running Windows, I wonder?

 

[Quackers]

No, I wouldn't have thought so.
You could always make a disc image of your system as it stands (with something like Clonezilla Live, or similar). At least you can recover it if something does go wrong.

 

[soundgals]

No, I wouldn't have thought so.
You could always make a disc image of your system as it stands (with something like Clonezilla Live, or similar). At least you can recover it if something does go wrong.

OK, thanks. I'll do that.