[SOLVED] Should I convert my MBR drive to GPT?

[ingeborgdot]

I have W10 64bit on a new system. The OS is on an SSD drive and is an MBR disk as are the other mechanical drives that are in the computer. All of the mechanical drives are 2TB. I have been reading that I may be better off changing these to GPT drives. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

If the OS is on a partition that's MBR, then you might have installed the OS the wrong way, since the OS tends to do the conversion part for you while installing the OS. If there's no important data on the drive that the OS is on(and the drive doesn't have multiple partitions) break the OS partitions at the installation window and create anew.

Also, if your drives are 2TB or above, they should be GPT. I even tend to have 1TB drives as GPT.

 

[alceryes]

Your system (BIOS) needs to support UEFI to boot from a GPT disk.
Moving from MBR to GPT is more of a feature ability upgrade than a performance upgrade. Your boot time might be slightly faster but that's about it. If you get drives larger than 2TB GPT will be required to use those drives with just one partition. Also, even if your BIOS does not support UEFI, you can still convert your data drives if you'd like (no real reason to though).

 

[ingeborgdot]

My board is only 3 months old. It does support UEFI. I'm not concerned about any boot time, but only want to switch if it is the best thing to do. I am most concerned about having issues with my OS drive. If I would have to do a clean install, it would take me weeks to get everything back, and installed again. I don't want that for sure.

I am thinking about getting a larger OS drive and making it NVME. When I format it, would I then make the new drive a GPT drive to get ready to clone it? Will that cause problems?

I have a picture of my OS drive and will try to figure out how to add a picture to my reply.

 

[ingeborgdot]

Well, so much for the picture. I must be missing how to upload a picture to the site that is on my desktop.

 

[Krotow]

Do not worry about UEFI. It is Secure Boot that cause problems for UEFI and luckily is optional and often disabled by default. Would not hurt to switch boot mode in BIOS to UEFI and reinstall your Windows from scratch, removing anything from drive at begin of install. It will switch partition table to GPT as well.

 

[alceryes]

...I am most concerned about having issues with my OS drive...

You won't have issues leaving it as MBR.

 

[ingeborgdot]

You won't have issues leaving it as MBR.

Great.

 

[ingeborgdot]

Do not worry about UEFI. It is Secure Boot that cause problems for UEFI and luckily is optional and often disabled by default. Would not hurt to switch boot mode in BIOS to UEFI and reinstall your Windows from scratch, removing anything from drive at begin of install. It will switch partition table to GPT as well.

I'm not looking to reinstall Windows. It would take me several weeks to reinstall all of my programs. I don't have time for that.

 

[Ralston18]

@ingeborgdot

This:

"I have a picture of my OS drive and will try to figure out how to add a picture to my reply."

Use imgur (www.imgur.com) to publish images and then post the link in this/your thread.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I have been reading that I may be better off changing these to GPT drives. What are your thoughts on this?

1. You don't need it (since your boot drive is less than 2TB). Conversion to GPT/UEFI doesn't really give any significant benefits. It may create problems though.
2. If you decide to do this conversion anyway, there's no need to reinstall windows for it either. Windows 10 has specific utility for this purpose - mbr2gpt.

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

 

[Ralston18]

And I will add that you @ingeborgdot must be very certain that all important data is backed up at least 2 x and proven to be recoverable and readable.

Plus those backups should not be in any way attached to the computer whose drive your are converting.

 

[ingeborgdot]

I am going to follow SkyNetRising's advice that I don't really need it. No worries now.