How to convert hard drive to gpt and vice versa

We already saw in a previous article what a GPT partition is, so now we have to learn how to convert a hard disk to GPT to start using the advantages of this partition style oriented to computers based on BIOS type UEFI. We will see the different methods there are and we will also see how to transfer a GPT disk to traditional MBR.

Index of contents

It is possible that many of us have a laptop and have the hard disk already preformatted in GPT, it is quite common in new UEFI-based computers. The opposite occurs in the hard drives that we buy, these most normally are that they come totally virgin without any specific partition style, so we will be in charge of assigning a partition style that suits us. Of course we can change this when we want using the tools that Windows does not make available.

Let's see how to perform these conversions using Disk Manager and the Diskpart command-line tool. We will use these because they are the ones that are natively available with the Microsoft operating system, although of course there are many other free and paid ones to carry out these actions.

How to tell if my hard drive has a GPT or MBR partition table

The first thing we will have to identify is if our hard drive has one partition style or another. In this way we will be able to know if the change is necessary or not, obviously.

With hard disk manager

In principle, from the disk manager, the graphical Windows partitioning tool, we will not be able to explicitly identify what type of partition style our hard drive has. Although we can know it by looking at a drop-down menu.

Well, to enter this tool we only have to press r with the right button on the start menu to choose the " Disk Management " option. The classic window will appear with the list of volumes that we have mounted on our system. In the lower area we will have these volumes grouped for each physical hard drive, along with their partitions, and this is where we have to fix our attention.

We are going to press with the right button on the information of each hard disk, in the left part of the graphic representation of each disk, and there we will be able to know if it is GPT or MBR. How ?, Let's see it.

If in the menu we see the option, even if it is deactivated of " Convert to MBR disk ", then our hard disk has the partition table in GPT.

If, on the other hand, the message " Convert to GPT disk " appears, then our hard disk will be MBR.

It is a simple but effective method.

With Diskpart

We can also do this using the Diskpart command mode tool. In this case it will provide us with some more information about the state of the partitions of our hard drives.

To start Diskpart we will have to open a command prompt window (CMD) or Windows PowerShell, we choose the latter. To do this, we will right-click on the start menu to choose the " Windows PowerShell (Administrator) " option.

Now we start the program by typing:

diskpart

To know what type of partition table we have, we write:

list disk

We must look at the last column of all, where it says " Gpt ", if there is an asterisk in the line corresponding to a hard drive, it will mean that the hard drive is GPT. The disk that does not have it, will mean that it is MBR. The data in the displayed columns is a little shaky, and the asterisk marking disk 2 is GPT is outside the corresponding column, this is a program display error.

Convert hard drive to GPT from MBR and vice versa

Once we know how to see if our hard drive has one style or another, it is time to see how to correctly change it from the two aforementioned programs.

One very important thing to keep in mind is that the conversion from GPT to MBR and vice versa, leads to complete removal of files from the hard drive, since we will need to completely remove the partition table from the drive and all content will be removed. of the disk. Although it is true that it will not be physically removed, so, through some file recovery software we could recover them, but we recommend making a previous backup so as not to lose anything.

Convert hard drive to GPT or MBR with Disk Manager

The process is very simple to carry out, the first thing we must do is leave the target hard disk unformatted. It goes without saying that this method cannot be applied to the hard disk where the system is installed.

Right- click on the assigned space (Blue) to choose the " Delete volume " option.

The space will now be rendered black. We will have to do the same with all the partitions that we have made on the disk until it is completely uniform and with " unallocated space ".

Now we only have to right click on the name of the disk on the far left and choose " Convert to GPT disk ". Although it seems that nothing happens, the disk is now GPT and the next thing is to create the corresponding partitions.

Then we right click on the unallocated space and choose " New simple volume ".

We will start a creation wizard to choose the partition space (in MB), the drive letter, its label and file system, as you see in these images.

We already have a GPT hard drive. To convert GPT hard disk to MBR, we will have to carry out the exact same steps, only in this case the option “ convert disk to MBR ” will appear.

Convert hard drive to GPT or MBR with Diskpart

The interesting thing about the Diskpart tool is that we can convert the hard drive from one system to another not only from Windows, but also from a Windows installation DVD or USB, since this command mode tool is available in this type of units.. In this way we can change the disk to our liking at the time of system installation.

Well, we start Diskpart as we already know how to do it with PowerShell and typing:

diskpart

We list our albums:

list disk

And we select the one that we are interested in converting, for this we will not look very well at the unit number:

select disk

In our case it would be "select disk 2". Now the commands that we execute will only be applied to the selected unit. Now we clean the entire partition disk:

clean

And finally we apply the conversion:

convert gpt

To convert the hard disk into MBR we would follow the same steps:

list disk

select disk

clean

convert mbr

Now we would have to create the partitions that we wanted on the formatted hard disk, although we will not cover this topic here, but in another tutorial.

Visit this tutorial to learn how to use Diskpart to format, create, delete partitions and much more.

Well nothing else, this is how we can convert hard drive into GPT and MBR. In another tutorial we will try to explain how to install Windows on a GPT hard drive, and see some tricks that are necessary for everything to go well.

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It was pretty straightforward, right? If you have a new large capacity hard drive under a UEFI system, we recommend configuring it as GPT, so you will be up to date and take advantage of the advantages of the new partition system.