MBR and GPT Partition Tables
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
- The partition table on a drive determines the structure of the data and this video will look at the MBR and GPT partition tables. Check out / itfreetraining or itfreetraining.com for more of our always free training videos. In some cases the operating system will choose the partition table for you, however having an understanding of the partition tables will help you understand what features each has as well as any compatibility problems that may occur due to the choice of partition table.
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Partition Tables
Before data can be stored on a device like a hard disk, a partition table needs to be created. This partition table defines where the data can be stored on the device. For example, if you had a 3 terabyte hard disk, you could create 2 partition tables. One partition could be 1 terabyte in size while the other could be 2 Terabytes in size. The partition table essentially determines which part of the hard disk can be used for what.
There are two different partition types available. These are MBR (Master Boot Record) and GPT (GUID Partition Table). MBR is the older style that offers more compatibility while GPT is newer and offers more features, most notably, it supports larger devices. In some cases, GPT may require particular hardware in order to run.
Master Boot Record (MBR)
MBR has been around since the first PC's were released. For this reason it should work on all computers, meaning it has great compatibility with existing hardware. MBR is limited to 4 primary partitions. To increase the number of partitions that could be created on a single drive, one of the MBR partitions could be converted into an extended partition. This extended partition contains configuration allowing additional partitions to be created. In DOS days, there could only be 26 partitions on one hard disk: 3 primary partitions and one extended partition that contained 23 additional partitions. This was a limitation due to each drive requiring a drive letter and thus a limit of 26 letters in the alphabet. In later operating systems more than 26 partitions could be created using extended partitions. The biggest limitation of MBR is that it can only use 2 Terabytes of space. If you have a drive bigger than 2 Terabytes, MBR can be used, but any space after 2 Terabytes will not be useable and thus will be wasted.
GUID Partition Table (GPT)
The GPT partition table supports 128 primary partitions and thus does not require any extended partitions. The main advantage of the partition table is it supports drives in the Zettabyte size. 1 ZB = 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes or 10 to power of 21 bytes or 1 billion terabytes. In order to boot an operating system for a GPT partition, you require a hard disk that supports "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface" or UEFI. This was designed to be a replacement for the older system called "Basic Input/Output System" or BIOS. The operating system also needs to support booting. For Windows this means Windows XP and Windows 2003 64 bit editions or above. For Linux most distributions should support both 32bit and 64bit operating systems. It is matter of checking the distribution to ensure it does. All modern Linux distributions should support this. If the hardware or operating system does not support booting, it is possible that the operating system will still be able to read the drive as a data drive. Every Windows operating system including and after Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 SP1 will support GPT as a data drive.
Converting between the two
If your hard disk is less than 2 terabytes, use MBR. This will offer you the most compatibility. If you do need to change between the two, most likely GPT to MBR, Windows can convert the drive; however, it will first need to have all the partitions removed thus erasing all the data on the drive. Third-party software is available for Windows which can convert the partition table without losing the data. Otherwise there is Linux software which can perform the conversion. Before converting the partition table, make sure that you back up all data on the drive.
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References
"Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012 Exam Ref 70-410" pg 42 - 43
"GUID Partition Table" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Par...
"en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitio..." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitio...
"Extended boot record" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended...
About 6 years ago I used to study with your videos quite a bit. Now i teach A+ and others, I am most Happy that your channel is still up and running!
I for one would be more than happy to see some new Videos!!
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Full of relevant knowledge, drama free and to the point. Microsoft can learn a lot from this partition. Microsoft Virtual Academy presenters waste time joking with each other, talking about personal lives (pictures with loving dogs) and distract massively from the subject. This video and more by author keep you glued.
Thank you for this refreshment course.
You're welcome. Happy we could help
Almost shrunk my new 3Tb HDD to a MBR 2Tb. Thanks for the info!
+David Van Drunen
You are welcome! Glad that you found our videos useful!
This old video helped me to understand concepts clearly with real examples. thanks a lot👍
I love your to the point and very well explained quality videos very much.A lot of respect to You and your videos.I will be very happy to refer these videos to anyone who is interested in this field...:)
Thanks very much and thanks for recommending the videos. That helps us a lot.
itfreetraining You are always Welcome...:)
Dear and respected itfreetraining please be kind to provide some guidance on situation i am in , i did a clean install of Windows 8.1 Pro version and my disk has been converted to GPT by installation ( i performed all steps needed for clean install such as deleting all partitions then clicked new then format and finally next ) and now my OS is booting from Windows Boot Manger ( only 1 OS is being present no dual boot ) and if i try to boot from my Hard disk drive all i get is black screen ? What should i do since as i know GPT doesn't allow setting C drive as Primary and Active as MBR does? I do not know why Windows installed GPT cause i did not perform any conversion steps and my HDD is 500 GB in size ? Thank you very much for your kind help
Now this is how videos should be done. Rehearsed and succinctly delivered information.
Thanks for your great feedback!
I used mbr for my 120gb ssd , can I also use mbr for my 1tb hdd at the same time? Or can I only use mbr for one of them. I have compatible hardware for both mbr and gpt [first time pc builder]
I love very much ITFREETRINING videos. It is very much helpful for my technical stuff. Thank you very much to the team.....
Thanks you very much and thanks for watching the video.
Perfect, this is exactly what I needed to know appreciate the info.
+Erasmo117 Happy to hear you found our videos helpful
Thank you itreetraining , very helpful.
Thanks very and thanks for watching.
Great and really informative video. Now, I know what MBR and GPT partitions table are. Finaly! Thank you very much!
+NetTubeUser You're very welcome. We are very happy you found our videos useful.
I have a question, may it not be about this specific video...
Why Hyper-V server 2012 is launched separately? bit confused about it, anyone welcome to answer.
I really needed to understand this, really thanks for the clear explanation :)
+HOMAR OROZCO You're so very welcome. We are ecstatic to hear that our video helped you.
Thanks sir. I appreciate your time. its very helpful. In fact I was installing Manjaro where I came access this thing. Your explanation is great. Thanks again
You're most welcome! We're glad our video was helpful and hope that the rest are just as useful!
You just saved me from a lot of headache. I was about to convert the disk to GPT but had no idea it would erase the partitions. Thank you very very much!
You're very welcome! We're glad the video helped you avert catastrophe.
you can convert it without losing any data, I converted my MBR drive to GPT as well just to use some UEFI bios features
Excellent lesson, thank you, made me subscribe to your channel. I am preparing for the CompTIA 902 exam which is scheduled for next week, I have already passed the 901. Thanks again.
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thank you for explaine wery nice keep doing videos yoo are realy good adviser
Great and simple explanation. Thanks a lot!
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I'm gonna subscribe. I'm learning stuff they didn't teach at school in our IT Dept. Thank you..
You're most welcome! We're happy that you found our videos informative. :) Thanks for choosing ITFreeTraining!
i havent trouble wit a portable drive
is a 4 tb
when i first bought it i plug in to my windows 7 pro pc n it read it n it was normal even had move about 500g worth of pics ,movies
than i decide to use it for an xbox one drive so i reformat it
after i sold my xbox i wanted to use back to windows but it didnt read at all so i cudnt reformat it
i plug it in my windows 10pc same problem
so i dowloaded a program that was able to read xbox one drive n
change it from xbox mode to pc
after that i was able to format it
bak to my pc
but when i plugged it back on my windows 7 pro pc it wud shut off my computer made my computer all weird that that i try to fix everything that i ended up reinstalling windows7 on that
after install i still have the same problem on that pc but not on my windows 10
that actually reads it n im able to put stuff on it
what wud be the problem?
Thanks a lot brother
I was searching for the difference of these two and your video helped me a lot to understand... Keep up the good work I'll be checking your channel...
Once again thanks you very much...
No problem at all. Glad we could help.
Nice video! Let me confirm...an MBR can address a maximum of a 2 TB capacity HDD or a maximum of a 2 TB partition? For example, can I have a 4TB HDD partitioned into two 2TB partitions?
Here in Windows 10, you can convert MBR to GPT *without losing data*
Excellent point! Thanks for commenting.
@@itfreetraining Most HDD partitioning tools allow converting GPT-MBR and vice versa without losing data as well
i watch this after formating the disk.
@@mrgreen7754 Formatting doesn't destroy information ;) It only checks disk and clears list of files. All files remain intact.
how?
Thanks for the post. Very helpful
Thank you, glad we could help.
Hey I was trying to install a 64bit Arch in Vbox... Reformatted the entire drive to MBR tables then did the partitions for installation and all the other procedures..
Was following a slightly modified guide... For installing the bootloader it told be to skip uefi/gpt and use bios/mbr...
Issue is i enabled EFI boot and when i checked if efivars is populated it was... SO ill have to try again deciding whether i want GPT or MBR and follow the process for one.
I guess if i decide on GPT/UEFI then i shouldnt reformat entire drive to mbr before i partition for installation of arch?
Another thing is can a 64 bit OS installation take place with MBR tables?I read it supports a 32 bit installation.. Am understanding this?
As is usual with an Arch installation.. Im forced to learn a crapton of shit very fast.. :)
Great video. Thanks!
Thanks very much.
wonderful! Very clear and good pace. Thanks!
Thanks very much.
Thank you so much for providing us more knowledge
Thank you itreetraining: nice summary
Thanks very much.
Very informative video. Thank you!
Thanks very much.
good stuff here, thank you.
Im using mbr and legacy boot. will these affect if im booting with my 1tb internal as the OS, with my 2tb external HD plugged in? Im experiencing quite a lot of blue screen after 30min of use from booting.
It shouldn't really. Go to the System Properties, and go to the Advanced tab. From here, select Startup and Recovery. Under the System Failure section, uncheck Automatically restart. This will allow you to see the bluescreen stop code. Get that and reply to our comment with the error code and we'll attempt to help you. Best of luck!
Hi.
I am facing a very complicated situation here. Ok it goes like this, I have a 500G hard drive and it was no longer declared as an NTFS but a RAW, so I tried fixing the problem with "Parted Magic" and I couldn't fix it until I deleted the data partition table from that disk and now it doesn't want to write a new one it keeps displaying an error message. So I thought maybe if I used/coppied my other hard drives MBR and restored them to my corrupted drive maybe the problem could be solved. So can you please help me out? Can disk cloning do that job for me?
Thanks.
It sounds like there is something wrong with the hard disk. I would suggest download a checking tool from the manufacture of the drive. Also if you have it plugged into the computer using USB this can cause problems so I would try connecting it directly to the computer if you have not already.
Thanks for sharing. Very usefull and clear presentation.
Glad it was helpful!
My understanding of topics has been levelled up after following this channels . This one is the nice work done by the Author of this channel . I would like to know the spokesperson of these videos and would like to follow him up.
+Anand Rajput We're happy our videos helped you. Thanks for the comment!
If I have 2 hard Drives, one is 1TB and the other is 2TB, will it show 3TB and work as well? or will it sshow only 2TB?
If you are trying to set up a PC or laptop with win 7, using a 500GB HDD, to see if the machine works, and, you find out it does work fine with Win 7, but later you want to upgrade to win 10 (same HDD) if you set the HDD to MBR will Win 10 install properly?🤔 Is it best to set up a HDD with GPT at the start? Thanks
Excellent explanation 👌🙏🏼
Glad you liked it
Thank you for this helpful infomation
You are most welcome!
thanks man! u explained it really good!
Thanks!
Great video, really helped me. Can someone clue me in regards the four primary partitions?
Can only one be extended?
What was the reasoning for only having four primary?
Thanks.
Four was originally used with the first PC's. As time when on they decided they needed more. To keep it compatible with the old PC's they could not change the number of primary partitions so they added the option to change one of the primary partitions to an extended partition. The extended partitions allows additional partitions to be created to increase the total number from four and keep compatibility with older systems. So only one can be extended. The OS now days handles all this stuff for you, so you generally don't need to worry about it.
Many many thanks
You're very, very welcome!
buenisimo saludos de Argentina
+Rodo Lescano
Happy to hear you enjoyed our videos
Thanks for the video series. Is part two ready
thank you for this great video!!
You are so welcome!
Good video. Thanks for sharing.
No problem at all, thanks for watching.
great explanation. thanks
Thank you.
Thank you. Helpful and concise. Subscribing ...
Thanks< You are breath of fresh air
Wow, thank you!
excellent explanation !
Thanks very much.
I love all your videos - you are an awesome instructor and the awesome content you are providing in such a didactically and thought through manner has saved my a** in several occasions! ;o))
Thanks very much. Glad we could help.
Had so convert my SSD from GPT to MBR to install, even though OS and hardware are 64 Bit and the PC supports UEFI. Was interested to know the difference. Thanks for the nice and well explained video. Much appreciated.
Master Boot Record (MBR) disks use the standard BIOS partition table. GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). Drives can be much, much larger and size limits will depend on the operating system and its file systems. GPT allows for a nearly unlimited amount of partitions, and the limit here will be your operating system.
What if I have an SSD that's only 1TB in size. Can I use MBR Partition style to clone my C Drive(GPT) which has the OS installed on it, to the SSD(MBR) & use that SSD to boot up Windows?
fantastic video thanks a lot
Great video sir!
Thanks!
Shalom Aleijem, Gracias por su explicación tan bien detalladas, saludos.
Thanks for watching.
Bravo! Cleared up a few thing for me!
+Jason Leming Thanks! We're glad it helped you out.
What happens if you partition a 2 tb hdd with GPT instead of MBR?
Great video! thank you
Glad you liked it!
I'm very useful, Thanks you
You're welcome!
thanks so much for these informations you re good thanks again
You're most welcome! Thanks for watching!
Thanks, very clear and informative
Thank you very much.
Thanks 👍🏽 it helped me.
Glad it helped
Very well explained sir. You earned a subscriber :)
+Remy7205 Thanks so very, very much for subscribing! We're always working on new videos.
Thanks a lot mate, a good work.
You're most welcome!
Wow! awesome video.
+Quang Nguyen Thanks! We're happy you found it to be awesome.
Hello Sir, Could you please tell me how do i create more than 4 partition on MBR hard disk not to lost any data in the futures even when reinstalling windows.
+Jacob Kim Naulak If you use disk manager, Windows will automatically change one of the primary partitions to an extended partition. You will be able to create more than 4 partitions then. When reinstalling Windows, the install will use the existing partitions.
hi. i bought new laptop with new m.2 ssd 512 gb. after fomatting gpu not worked. i asked to support they told me laptop missing some drivers. i updated all driver and nothing changed. the i installed linux but it didn't installed normally, was not working good. i think it's ssd has problem. it's gpt. do you prefer me to change it mbr? do you think it will work?
Since the drive is small, you can use MBR. MBR is better supported so if you are having problem it is worth trying. Since you are using a laptop and only a small drive you are not missing out on anything using MBR.
great info, thanks
Thanks for watching!
So basically, I should use GPT for 4 TB or more HDD/SSD and GPT for anything less?
GPT is a standard, everyone uses GPT these days, I haven't even heard MBR since last 2 years
@@memd777 i'm confused, i want to add one more OS (win 7) to my win10, it says "the disk is GPT" so im thinking to convert maybe just the one partition (have no idee are that posible), but i'm scary to do that (maybe i will lost all data from other partition). So i'm thinking right know, IS THERE A WINDOWS 7 THAT SUPPORT GPT???
@@xxxARBiHxxx the question is, why do you want to install windows 7 with windows 10 ? Thats the question. Windows 10 is better than windows 7 in every way possible. Its backward compatible so all apps of windows 7 can run on 10 easily. There is no reason to install windows 7 again. If it was one of unix based OS I could have understood but having 7 when you can have 10 I don't get it. And to answer your question, NO , WINDOWS 7 DOES NOT SUPPORT GPT. Don't go back in time.
@@memd777 very easy to answer my brother. i have AMD switchable graphic card, i really tried all possible ways from internet (like power options, trying XY different drivers and other things) to make my AMD available for apps and games, but it just starts on the basic Intel graphic card. have no idee why, on win7 it works perfectly, it recognizes automatically, but on win10 even when i set manualy to start on AMD it will not. it bothers me. so i wanted win 10 for working and learning and win7 for playing
@@xxxARBiHxxx makes sense. But i am pretty sure your graphic card should work with win10, i am sure there must be a way out. I would recommend you to find that way, because thats the right way, if you give up then yeah you go for win 7, but dont give up.
very informative .. thnx
Zahid Adeel Thank you!
That was my mistake i just installed my new windows on a 4 tb hdd with NBR partition
Now i have to format everything and install it again
THANKS FOR THE VIDEO :)
You're most welcome.
dude epic just epic!!!! i almost format my new 3 Tb HDD as MBR thanks to you i will not waste a 1TB!!!!!!!!!!!!
***** The issue is not with the sector sizes. The issue is the 32bit address they use to mark the end of the partition. They went for a value that indicates where the partition ends rather than a size value. The sector size chosen does not effect this value.
4k sector sizes of MBR is something we need to add to this video. The problem with them is the operating system may have problems with them. But if it works it does allows up to 16TB drives.
***** Thanks for letting us know that. I will have a look into it.
Thank you, we're glad you found the video helpful
great video I thank you
You're welcome!
thx for your video
You're welcome! Thanks for watching. :)
Epic video realy helped me understand!
Excellent! We're so glad you found it useful!
Thank you!
You're most welcome!. Thanks for watching. :)
:)
Fogarty Avenue
;)
I am curious if you do know, when all 4 partition entries of MBR are taken up what would you do if you wanted to create another one. This would be the case if you was installing another operating system for example. I don't really know the answer
One of the partitions can be what is referred to as an extended partition. This partition can contain a number of partitions. In the older operation system only 26 partitions were supported as this was how many drive letters there were. So you would have 3 primary partitions and one extended partition. The extended partition could contain another 23 partitions. Newer operating system can have more than 26. Windows disk manager will automatically change a partition to extended as required.
I assume the extending partitions are in the same format? or is it different altogether.
The extended partition could be a different format if you choose.
thx for the info
You're very welcome! Thanks for choosing ITFreeTraining!
So I am trying to initialize a HDD that is for storage ONLY. I have a SSD for boot. Which do I chose? MBR or GPT?
+Shawgydog Hello, you could technically use either in this instance. However, because you are not booting to it it would be suggested to use GPT as it has more advantages over MBR, especially since you aren't using it to boot.
+itfreetraining Thank you for replying so fast I really appreciate it
Not a problem! We appreciate you being a viewer and hope you continue to stay tuned. :) Please feel free to ask any other questions.
Thank you very much! :)
+Eltschin Rsayev You're very welcome. Thanks for watching!
Good explanation made my mouse move and click "subscribe" right away.
+8Jallin Thanks so much! Thanks for subscribing, we're releasing a few new videos over the next day or so, so stay tuned!
Thank you
No problem at all. Thanks for taking the time to watch.
Hi, you mention that for a UEFI system to be bootable the HDD has to support UEFI. Is that true also for CD/DVD players? I ask because I'm having problems using such a device to boot a Windows 10 installation disk. It gives an error 'crypto library internal error'. But when I use the same player in my mbr/bios based system I have no problems using the installation DVD. Why?
+Imran Hameed UEFI is a new system then BIOS and has a number of working parts in order to get it to work. For this reason, older software and hardware may have problems with it. If you are getting an error, you may need to update the software or hardware.
+itfreetraining Hi, do you know what the particular error I am getting, i.e. crypto library internal error means? The cd/dvd drive I am using is brand new Samsung unit (its a burner actually) and therefore should be uefi ready. The motherboard is a new Asus Z97-A/USB 3.1 and the cpu is an intel I5 - 4690K. So all hardware is new!
+Imran Hameed Can you give me the exact error that you received?
can i recover the hdd that is mbr and has a bad sector. but in my compitee its not displayed only in manage
You can certainly try, there are also some Linux Live CDs that provide HDD recovery capabilities. With a bad sector, it might make it difficult but it's possible to try and make the bit level copy of the drive to a good drive to access from there.
Thank you.
You're welcome!
hey,please can you help me. My friend has been trying to install windows 7 and he gets he can't select his 1TB drive and click next because it says "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has a MBR partition table. On EFI systems, windows can only be installed to GPT disks" can you help us make it work? Thanks :)
Is the drive a solid state drive? It may be that version of Windows has problems detecting the drive. Possibly the firmware on the solid state needs to be updated. I would test the drive and make sure that it works. For 1 TB drive it should not matter if you use MBR or GPT. Also EFI does not matter if you use MBR or GPT. Only becomes a problem with the drive is larger than 2 TB.
Test? I am just a noob and trying to make the best choices. Thanks for the education I can apply to my new desktop.
Well done.
Thank you
Why 2 TiB limit in MBR ? Logical Block Address (LBA) is 32 bit and disk sector size is 512 bytes. 2^32 x 2^9 = 2^41 = 2 TiB. Hence the limit. More disk spaces is not usable.
thankyu so much
Thanks.
Does Foxcon G41 MXE Motherboard Compatible with GPT Partition?
The motherboard shouldn't impact what partitions are supported. GPT will work as intended.
So that is the thing mbr lockers overwrite?
i want to move games like gmod to hardrive which one i choose mbr or gpt?
GPT is practically the new standard, so if choose that if you have an option.
thank you. Do you have hyper V video?
Not at this stage, but we will in the future.
Superb❤
Thanks 🤗
A question if you can answer. My system is old by today's standard and it doesn't have UEFI so no GPT (at least from what I understood you need UEFI to support GPT), if I plug in a drive larger than 2TB in my system can I use the it as a storage drive and not a bootable one?
I do have Windows 7 64bit. Also if I plug in a 2TB drive will it work?
It depends which operating system you are running. If the operating system supports GPT as data drives you will be able to use it.
itfreetraining Thank you for the answer.
You're most welcome!
Very helpfull.
Glad to hear it! Thanks!
Many Thx very useful videos...Can you please put some more HyperV Videos and I am building the New HyperV environment an that will help me.
Sandeep Singh You're welcome. Glad you found our video helpful
Good Tips
Thanks!
TNX for the info mate keep it going ^_^
+Christian Mayor
You're welcome!
Thank for help
You're very welcome!