Woody -- Your message is complex, please forgive me if I misunderstand.
WoodyZ wrote:
Now in each of these times I rebuilt and didn't use the Boot Camp Assistant nonetheless VMware Fusion would automatically create an entry in the Virtual Machine Library for the Windows install of the manually created (using Disk Utility) Boot Camp partition. Now I didn't run the Boot Camp partition Virtual Machine and deleted it from the virtual Machine Library however that seems to contradict what you've said. Any guess as to why it apparently must have updated the Protective MBR since VMware Fusion had no problem creating an initial entry on the Virtual Machine Library. Is this a case of I followed the directions to reformat the FAT32 to NTFS and not delete/recreate the partition during the install vs what resonanttoe may have done and using GPT?
"why it" is the confusing part for me. Fusion 5 and all previous versions look only at the 4 entries in the protective MBR. Fusion does not read the GPT at all, and in no case will it ever update the MBR or GPT. Fusion is looking for a partition of type 7, 0x0b, or 0x0c (NTFS, Win95-FAT32, or Win95-FAT32-LBA). If it finds such a partition, it makes additional checks to verify that Windows is actually installed in the partition. If all checks succeed, Fusion allows you to create a Boot Camp VM from that partition.
Apple's Boot Camp utility was originally released as support for XP, and what it does when it partitions your disk is resize the Mac partition down and create another partition to hold Windows. It makes partition entries in both the GPT and the protective MBR, because XP isn't GPT-aware. It may or may not format the partition for FAT32, but it does mark the MBR partition as a FAT32 partition and makes it the "active" partition. When you restart with a Windows installation disc in the CD-ROM drive, Windows Setup offers the Boot Camp partition as a valid place to install.
Starting with Vista, the Windows OS must be installed to an NTFS drive, which is why you have to reformat the Boot Camp partition to NTFS. When you do so within Windows Setup, the setup program marks the MBR entry for your partition as type 7.
Once you get a hybrid MBR onto your system, it will probably stay around through your rebuilds unless you are particularly aggressive about erasing disks and repartitioning. That's probably what's occurring in your case, though this is speculation on my part.
I think it was Win7 that introduced the ability to boot from an EFI (pure GPT) disk.