How to View and Convert MBR to GPT on Windows 11 or 10?

You might wonder what MBR and GUID are reading the article’s topic. Master Boot Record (MBR) disks use the standard BIOS partition table, whereas GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). Several advantages you get with GPT, one of them being that you can have more than four partitions on each disk. However, you will have to use GBT if your disks are more significant than 2TB (TeraBytes) since MBR only supports less than 2TB disks. Furthermore, an MBR drive can only have four primary partitions, whereas GPT drives can have up to 128 different partitions without using an extended partition.

Depending on the Operating System, Windows uses a Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT). In some cases, you might want to switch between the two, which may cause data loss. You can conveniently switch between the two, provided your disk doesn’t contain any partitions or volumes.

• 64-bit Windows 11, 10, 8.1, 8, 7, and Vista require a UEFI-based system to boot from a GPT drive.
• 32-bit Windows 10, 8.1, and 8 require a UEFI-based system to boot from a GPT drive.
• 32-bit Windows 7 and Vista cannot boot from a GPT drive.
• All mentioned Windows versions could read and write to a GPT drive.

How to Identify whether your Disk is MBR or GPT?

It recommends that you be aware of your system’s partition table scheme. Follow the instructions mentioned below to find out the same:-

Step 1: To begin, open the Disk Management tool.

Step 2: In the disk, you see on the left sidebar, look for the Properties option by right-clicking on it.

Step 3: Switch to the Volumes tab.

Step 4: You can also find whether your HDD or SSD uses GUID Partition Table (GPT) or Master Boot Record (MBR) beside the “Partition style.”

How to Convert MBR to GPT on Windows 11 or 10?

You should keep a backup of the disk you are going to convert from MBR to GPT. It advises because the conversion process will erase all the data from the select disk.

Use the following steps to convert MBR to GPT on Windows 11 or 10:-

Step 1: First, open an elevated Command Prompt.

Step 2: Browse the following on your keyboard and hit Enter:-

diskpart

Step 3: Next, type list disk and hit the Enter key on the keyboard to view and display all the disks that hook to your system. The output will label as Gpt. If you see an asterisk( * ) next to the output, the disk is already GPT formatted. However, the disk is MBR formatted if you do not find it there.

Step 4: Once you do that, select the disk you want to convert into GPT format. You can do that by typing the following command and pressing Enter:-

select disk #

On a side note, instead of #, you need to use the disk number you want to select. For example, the following command will set the second disk:-

select disk 1

Step 5: You can erase all volume or partitions from the select disk by typing clean and hitting Enter key on the keyboard.

Step 6: Finally, type convert gpt and hit Enter key on the keyboard to convert MBR to GPT.

How to Convert GPT to MBR on Windows 11 or 10?

You should keep a backup of the disk you are going to convert from GPT or MBR. It advises because the conversion process will erase all the data from the select disk.

Use the following steps to convert GPT to MBR on Windows 11 or 10:-

Step 1: Open an elevated Command Prompt.

Step 2: Type the following and hit Enter on the keyboard:-

diskpart

select disk #

select disk 1