Dual Boot issues (Win7/10) and data corruption

topgundcp · 25 Jul 2016

You didn't mention it, so I assume that the conversion to GPT won't have data loss, but I'm just a little paranoid when messing with partitions (bad experience with Partition Magic.....).

Before I posted, I did test with one of my scratch disk simulating what you had ie. 3 primary partitions + 3 logical partitions with some data in them, convert it to GPT and the result is no data loss. However, as precaution, it would not hurt to backup first.
FYI, with GPT partition scheme:

Support a HD up to 2^64 blocks in length. (For 512-byte blocks, this is 9.44 ZB - zettabytes. 1 ZB is 1 billion terabytes) but restricted by Windows to 256TB
It can also support theoretically unlimited partitions. Windows restricted to 128 Partitions

bro67 · 25 Jul 2016

EsJeff said:

Thanks, topgundcp! I will definitely be following that advice, once I back everything up. You didn't mention it, so I assume that the conversion to GPT won't have data loss, but I'm just a little paranoid when messing with partitions (bad experience with Partition Magic.....).

Also, thanks for the tip about WMC! I never came across that and all my research was Kodi, Kodi, Kodi. So, about a month ago, I installed Win10, MediaPortal2 and Kodi on my laptop which serves as a PVR (the primary functionality I need). I can't say it was easy, but I did get it running successfully. I'm just not as happy with it compared to WMC.

Kodi has a lot more flexibility. I use Exodus to watch movies all of the time and a Proxy DNS to get around the UK walled garden.

There are a lot of different themes that you can use to make Kodi look better than WMC was. The next upcoming release of Kodi is going to look a lot better than the current one.

EsJeff · 26 Jul 2016

I'm hoping to have time to start the backup process tonight. I'll let you know how it goes once complete. I appreciate everyone's help.

bro67 -- To each their own but, like I said, my primary reason for a Kodi-like program is for PVR purposes and from my short experience, it doesn't seem that Kodi's focus is on the TV features. Admittedly, that was after a long process of getting both MediaPortal and Kodi to work and I was easily frustrated at that point. I should give it another chance.

bro67 · 26 Jul 2016

Kodi offers PVR add-ons. The add-ons are created by those who want to share them with others through the repositories. Kodi is just the base. Most you have to pay a subscription fee to use the programs. Kodi is made to be used on the Android and Linux platforms. Plex and others are made to run on Windows. NextPVR integrates Kodi.

I use Kodi on a Matricom G-Box Q2 that I use for it. I do not do live tv, since a lot of shows are available on Amazon and my wife insists on wanting to use Pay to Watch tv, I have to stick with that for regular tv viewing.