I have a lot of USB-Sticks, all in GPT format. Rescue Media rejects these sticks on the grounds that "GPT Format not supported". Does this mean, that Rerscue Media only accepts sticks in MBR format and I have to reformat them all?

I found this forum thread that may provide some insight:  https://forum.macrium.com/40562/Rescue-Media-Unsupported-disk-and-gpt-format-not-supported

The Rescue Media Builder application currently only allows using MBR storage devices for Rescue Media in order to maintain support for Legacy BIOS booting. MBR devices can be used for both BIOS and UEFI booting, but GPT devices only work for UEFI booting. However, if you want to use a GPT device, you can use Rescue Media Builder to create an ISO file, then mount the ISO file and copy the files inside the ISO onto a FAT32 partition located on your GPT device. The resulting Rescue Media will work (again, only in UEFI mode).

That said, with USB sticks, there is not much benefit to using GPT since you are unlikely to need more than four partitions or have a device with more than 2 TB of capacity when using a USB stick, so in most cases, using MBR on USB sticks is fine. But if you need or want to use GPT, then you can still use that stick for Rescue Media with a small additional bit of work.

Thank you (and capair45) very much. I'll try both versions.

+x

 

gerschmi - 28 December 2021 2:10 PM

Thank you (and capair45) very much. I'll try both versions.

If your gpt drives are formatted as NTFS (or exFat), you may need to shrink drive by say 2GB so you can create a fat32 partition to copy iso files to.  I does not matter if fat32 partition is after an NTFS/exFat partition.

If the partition is fat32 and has data, I recommend you create a subdirectory e.g. mydata
and then moved all existing files into that folder.  Then when you copy isofiles, you will not mix up your data with Reflect files.

However, as JPHUGAN says, there is no point in formatting a usb flash drive as GPT unless you want to create a bootable UEFI windows to go drive, have more than 4 primary partitions, or if drive is over 2TB.