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Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 11:23:36 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Leslie Jensen <leslie@eskk.nu>
Subject: Re: Considering purchase off SSD! Follow up
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On Tue, 9 Oct 2012, Leslie Jensen wrote:

> Got my new SSD. Have some additional questions.
>
> My old disk is MBR partitioned. I want to reserve only a part of the disk for 
> my Win7 installation and in order to do that I must initialise the disk (This 
> is in Windows7).
>
> A question comes up about using MBR or GPT (GUID Partition Table)
>
> I know I can just go ahead and use MBR but I would like to ask if GPT would 
> be beneficial.
>
> Is it possible to use GUID when one has a dual boot system?
>
> I presume that FreeBSD can handle GPT but I'm unsure!

Yes, FreeBSD can handle it.  As usual, Windows is the problem.  From 
what I've read, only Windows 7 64-bit supports GPT, and then only with 
UEFI.  So it's very likely that MBR is the only practical choice.

Another trick is that Windows generally only has drivers for what was 
present when it was installed.  So switching the BIOS to AHCI for better 
performance can result in Windows not booting.  It is possible to locate 
the Windows drivers and install them.

Otherwise, FreeBSD will work fine without AHCI, disk IO will be just a 
bit slower.