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I have a Windows 10 and Ubuntu 14.04 dual boot system. I am a novice at Ubuntu but managed to get the dual boot up and running reliably. I am now trying to add a 3TB HD and partition it for use by ubuntu. When I start gparted I get the following error:

Libarted Warning: /dev/sdc contains GPT signatures, indicating that it has a
 GPT table.  However, it does not have a valid fake msdos partition table, as it
 should.  Perhaps it was corrupted -- possibly by a program that doesn't
 understand GPT partition tables.  Or perhaps you deleted the GPT table, and are
 now using an msdos partition table.  Is this a GPT partition table?

When I open a terminal window and start sudo gdisk for the same drive /dev/sdb I get:

Type device filename, or press <Enter> to exit: /dev/sdb
Partition table scan:
  MBR: MBR only
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: not present


***************************************************************
Found invalid GPT and valid MBR; converting MBR to GPT format
in memory. THIS OPERATION IS POTENTIALLY DESTRUCTIVE! Exit by
typing 'q' if you don't want to convert your MBR partitions
to GPT format!
***************************************************************

I have been looking at "GPT partition table warning message during install of ubuntu" but it doesn't appear to be an exact match for my system and I have so far been too cowardly to do anything but quit. All I really want to do is get the new drive online so I have some room to start making virtualbox VMs without trashing my existing dual boot set up. I got enough out of previous link to make me concerned that if I messed up I will trash my windows 10 partition. Any suggestions?

For now I'm gonna go make backups of both my windows 10 and ubuntu partitions. Thanks

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Rick
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  • Operator error is probably most of my problem. /dev/sdc was the unpartitioned HD so the Libarted error is probably meaningless. In any case it's gone since I partitioned the drive. Don't know why gdisk wants to convert my MBR to GPT or why I would want to let it for /dev/sdb which contains my windows 10 and ubuntu partitins. SInce It doesn't seem to be hurting anything I think for now my solution is to not use gdisk. – Rick May 06 '16 at 19:15
  • Taking your question at face value, you used Gparted on `/dev/sdc` and `gdisk` on `/dev/sdb`, so you weren't using the programs on the same disk. If your new disk was indeed `/dev/sdc`, then chances are it just had some "junk" where the partition table normally is. Be aware that `gdisk` will *automatically* convert MBR to GPT (in memory only unless/until you save changes with `w`), and that's what its messages meant. Most of the time you do *not* want to convert from MBR to GPT, hence the warnings it gives you on this matter. – Rod Smith May 09 '16 at 17:57

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