MBR or GPT for new drive?

[Elliot B.]

My Dell Precision T1600's UEFI is running in Legacy mode (or some part of it is, I can't remember without going back into the UEFI).

 

It was set to Legacy mode when I bought it and I didn't spot it until I'd already installed Windows, Plex etc. and now, if it's changed to UEFI mode, Windows BSODs on boot so it appears I'm stuck with Legacy mode.

 

My current drives, according to Disk Management, are set up as:

 

SSD1 is MBR (boot drive)
HDD1 is GPT (storage)
HDD2 is GPT (storage)
 
I've just bought HDD3 (storage) and Disk Management wants me to choose either MBR or GPT to initialise it.

Which should I choose?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

it doesn't matter much for storage drives unless you plan to have more Partitions then MBR allows

[+Matthew S. Subscriber²]

always gpt it, that way if you do decide to reinstall windows at a later date you can convert that mbr drive (lol?) to a gpt drive.

[SnoopZ]

Mine are all MBR but a quick google says gpt is better.....

 

https://www.disk-partition.com/gpt-mbr/mbr-vs-gpt-1004.html

[Brandon H Supervisor]

13 minutes ago, SnoopZ said:

Mine are all MBR but a quick google says gpt is better.....

 

https://www.disk-partition.com/gpt-mbr/mbr-vs-gpt-1004.html

thanks for the comparison, it does kinda confirm my above thoughts as well.

 

Unless the drive is larger than 2TB or you plan to have more than 4 partitions then it doesn't seem to make much difference if it's not going to be the boot drive.

Most of the benefits for GPT seem to be for if it's a boot drive

[Ahazuarus]

You can change run mbr2gpt.exe probably already in your system32 folder from command line, then reboot and change boot mode from legacy to UEFI to fix the bsod issue.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

 

I have done this on dozens of machines.  Like Brandon says, if you new disk is 2tb, you will need to format it gpt.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

4 minutes ago, Ahazuarus said:

You can change run mbr2gpt.exe probably already in your system32 folder from command line, then reboot and change boot mode from legacy to UEFI to fix the bsod issue.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

 

I have done this on dozens of machines.  Like Brandon says, if you new disk is 2tb, you will need to format it gpt.

that is good to know, I didn't know you could convert the boot drive without having to reinstall

[+Matthew S. Subscriber²]

18 hours ago, Ahazuarus said:

You can change run mbr2gpt.exe probably already in your system32 folder from command line, then reboot and change boot mode from legacy to UEFI to fix the bsod issue.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

 

I have done this on dozens of machines.  Like Brandon says, if you new disk is 2tb, you will need to format it gpt.

I think you have to tweak something in the registry to after running that, unless microsoft fixed that.

[neufuse Veteran]

if you are running in UEFI mode then you pretty much want GPT

[spaceelf]

There's no point to ever using MBR.  Its' day is long past.

[zaidgs]

I agree with the other replies. Just go with GPT.

This is not a critical decision, as it will very rarely matter which one you choose. However, in the rare cases that it does make a difference, you will most likely want to have GPT (in modern systems). The only time you would want MBR is dealing with legacy hardware (non-UEFI) or operating systems.