How to know what type of partition I have

Gparted is another very useful option and it's free software

If you dig a little deeper, you will find that you can switch your hard drives between MBR (Master Boot Record) and GPT (Guid Partition Table) as partition type, and then you can specify whether you want to use basic partitions (the default) or use dynamic partitions, which is a special method to allow Windows to manage the partition.

There are tons of third-party partition managers for Windows, but Windows comes with its own tool, which did a good job of hiding it, but finding and using it is a breeze.

In addition, you can use the "Disk Management" tool to resize, create, delete and format partitions and volumes, as well as change the letters of the disk drives, all without downloading or paying for any other software.

About Windows 10 Disk Management

This is a built-in tool in Windows 10 that is widely known to PC users, and can help you manage hard drive partitions without rebooting and without interruption. It is a convenient tool for Windows 10 users. The "Disk Management" features of Windows 10 are as follows:

Create, delete and format partitions Change drive letters and paths Mark partitions as active Explore a partition to see its files Extend and shrink partitions Add mirrored volume Initialize a new disk before you can use it Convert a MBR partition to GPT, and vice versa Convert a basic disk to dynamic

What is a partition?

When referring to a hard drive, a disk partition is a section of the hard drive that is separated from other segments. Partitions help users divide a computer's hard drive into different drives or different portions for various reasons. For example, allowing multiple operating systems to run on the same device.

With older file allocation tables such as FAT16, creating smaller partitions allowed your computer's hard drive to run more efficiently and save more space on your hard drive. However, with new file allocation tables, such as FAT32, this is no longer the case.

Understanding the interface

The first time you run "Disk Management" (which can be done by right-clicking the Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 Start button, and selecting the appropriate option), you will be presented with a two-panel interface. The list of volumes is at the top, and the list of physical drives at the bottom.

The bottom panel shows not only the list of physical drives, but also a graphical representation of the partitions or volumes on each drive, including lots of useful information.

In this window, you will notice that the units display additional information. For example, on most PCs it will be seen that the C: drive is the boot drive, while the "System Reserved" partition is the active partition.

That partition reserved for the system actually contains the boot files, so the BIOS initially boots from that partition, and then Windows loads through the C: partition.

If you select a drive or partition and use the "Action" option from the menu, you will see a list of most of the options, including how to create a single, spanned, striped or mirrored volume, and how to switch between MBR / GPT disk type o Basic / Dynamic.

If you right-click on a partition, you will see a different list of actions. You can change the drive letter or path to another drive or you can reduce / extend the volume, format or delete it.

How to view partitions from Disk Management

To see the partitions and volumes you have in the Windows operating system, "Disk Management" is the preferred tool, which helps to see if the drive is recognized and has one or more partitions. To do this, follow the steps below:

In Windows 10, press the Win + R key combination at the same time. In the menu that opens, click "Disk Management."

On the bottom side of the screen, two separate sections will open. In the lower section, a graphical representation of the partitions on the installed drives will appear. The top section is for viewing the status, capacity, and file system of a drive.

The drives installed on the system will be displayed in the lower section, starting with the boot drive (Disk 0). In almost all cases, troubleshooting will be done from the bottom section. Here, users can view all drives, make sure they are online, and verify that they contain valid partitions.

How to check if your disk uses GPT or MBR

Modern versions of Windows (and other operating systems) can use the older Master Boot Record (MBR) or the new GUID Partition Table (GPT) for their partition types. Here's how to check what type of partition table you're using.

These are just different ways to store the partition table on one drive. GPT is more modern and is required to boot Windows systems in UEFI mode. MBR is required to boot older Windows systems in BIOS mode, although the 64-bit version of Windows 7 can also boot in UEFI mode.

What type of partition is your hard drive using

To check which partition table your disk is using, you have two options: you can use the Windows graphical disk management tool, or you can use the command line.

Option 1: Disk Management

To access "Disk Management", right-click on the Start menu or press Windows + X and select "Disk Management". You can also press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box, type "diskmgmt. msc ”in the dialog box and hit Enter.

Locate the disk you want to verify and right-click and select "Properties".

In the window that opened, click on the "Volumes" tab. There, you will find the partition style your disk, MBR, or GPT is using.

Option 2: Diskpart command

You can also check the partition type using the standard "diskpart" command in a command prompt window.

First, open a command prompt window as administrator by right-clicking the Start button or clicking Windows + X and selecting "Command Prompt (administrator)".

You can also locate the command prompt shortcut in the Start menu, right-click on it and select "Run as administrator".

Type the following two commands, hitting Enter after each:

diskpart list disk

You will see a table listing the connected disks. If a disk is GPT, it will have an asterisk (that is, a * character) below the GPT column. If it is an MBR disk, it will be empty under the GPT column.