Questions about MBR & GPT disks

[Brds7t7]

Hey guys,

I currently have a 250GB Samsung EVO SSD I use as my OS drive. I currently use legacy BIOS and MBR as none of my drives are over 2TB. But I want to start making use of larger storage drives without having to switch my BIOS & OS SSD to GPT.

It is my understanding that I can still use Legacy BIOS and MBR on the OS drive,
I can, however, initialise any secondary/storage drive over 2TB as GPT using Disk Management and it will show the full capacity within Windows, even if using MBR on the Boot/OS drive?

Also, 32-Bit Windows 7 won't see the full capacity of a GPT drive over 2TB, only 64-Bit?

If I were to use UEFI BIOS then all my HDD's/SSD's have to be cleaned/initialised as GPT to fully use all the functionality, e.g. seeing drives over 2TB and use of more partitions? Or could I use a program like Minitool Partition Wizard to convert the OS SSD without needing to clean/initialise?

Just wanted to double check I've got that all correct?

Thanks for any help.

 

[DavidE]

It is my understanding that I can still use Legacy BIOS and MBR on the OS drive,
I can, however, initialise any secondary/storage drive over 2TB as GPT using Disk Management and it will show the full capacity within Windows, even if using MBR on the Boot/OS drive?

I can confirm you can use a drive over 2TB initialized as GPT with a Legacy BIOS / MBR OS drive with Windows 64 Bit.
It can be a single partition and uses the full capacity.
It must be a Primary partition, a Logical partition didn't work for me.

I don't have any 32 Bit OS's anymore, so i can't comment on that.
I don't have UEFI BIOS, so i can't comment on that.

 

[Brds7t7]

It is my understanding that I can still use Legacy BIOS and MBR on the OS drive,
I can, however, initialise any secondary/storage drive over 2TB as GPT using Disk Management and it will show the full capacity within Windows, even if using MBR on the Boot/OS drive?

I can confirm you can use a drive over 2TB initialized as GPT with a Legacy BIOS / MBR OS drive with Windows 64 Bit.
It can be a single partition and uses the full capacity.
It must be a Primary partition, a Logical partition didn't work for me.

I don't have any 32 Bit OS's anymore, so i can't comment on that.
I don't have UEFI BIOS, so i can't comment on that.

Awesome, thanks David!

It's unlikely I'll use UEFI BIOS anyway, as I don't really see much need for it with the OS drive being under 2TB.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Also, 32-Bit Windows 7 won't see the full capacity of a GPT drive over 2TB, only 64-Bit?

If I were to use UEFI BIOS then all my HDD's/SSD's have to be cleaned/initialised as GPT to fully use all the functionality, e.g. seeing drives over 2TB and use of more partitions? Or could I use a program like Minitool Partition Wizard to convert the OS SSD without needing to clean/initialise?

I'm not sure about your first question, but I do think that if you want to boot from a drive larger than 2.2 TB, that it must be GPT and you must use UEFI and 64-bit. A BIOS system can't boot a GPT disk.

I rebuilt recently using UEFI on a 128 GB OS SSD, but I also have a 3 TB GPT internal storage drive. I did wipe all drives and start over, but someone on this forum within the last 2 or 3 weeks did mention a program (possibly Partition Wizard) that supposedly will do the conversion to GPT without wiping or risking data. I'd have a hard time trusting it would work and would certainly backup up all data before trying it.

I'm not sure how beneficial it is to have a UEFI installation, but I thought I'd try it.

I did have trouble.

When booting from the USB flash drive installer, I saw a bunch of menu choices, including 2 for the USB flash drive. I had to be sure to choose the one that began with the word "UEFI". Even then, I still had trouble as the Windows installation stalled with an error about the lack of a CD/DVD driver as I recall. I had no idea what that was about, but inserted the motherboard manufacturer (AsRock) driver disk into my DVD burner and was able to get by that error.

And--for unknown reasons----I could NOT use a USB flash drive installer made from a known good official Windows 7 ISO using Rufus. The installation would stop midway through the "Windows is expanding files" stage.

I instead had to use Rufus to make a USB flash drive installer, pointing Rufus to an ISO I personally made from a previously burned Win 7 installation DVD that had SP1 slipstreamed into it. That did not stall at "Windows is expanding files".

I have no idea why one method failed and the other worked.

 

[Brds7t7]

Also, 32-Bit Windows 7 won't see the full capacity of a GPT drive over 2TB, only 64-Bit?

If I were to use UEFI BIOS then all my HDD's/SSD's have to be cleaned/initialised as GPT to fully use all the functionality, e.g. seeing drives over 2TB and use of more partitions? Or could I use a program like Minitool Partition Wizard to convert the OS SSD without needing to clean/initialise?

I'm not sure about your first question, but I do think that if you want to boot from a drive larger than 2.2 TB, that it must be GPT and you must use UEFI and 64-bit. A BIOS system can't boot a GPT disk.

I rebuilt recently using UEFI on a 128 GB OS SSD, but I also have a 3 TB GPT internal storage drive. I did wipe all drives and start over, but someone on this forum within the last 2 or 3 weeks did mention a program (possibly Partition Wizard) that supposedly will do the conversion to GPT without wiping or risking data. I'd have a hard time trusting it would work and would certainly backup up all data before trying it.

I'm not sure how beneficial it is to have a UEFI installation, but I thought I'd try it.

I did have trouble.

When booting from the USB flash drive installer, I saw a bunch of menu choices, including 2 for the USB flash drive. I had to be sure to choose the one that began with the word "UEFI". Even then, I still had trouble as the Windows installation stalled with an error about the lack of a CD/DVD driver as I recall. I had no idea what that was about, but inserted the motherboard manufacturer (AsRock) driver disk into my DVD burner and was able to get by that error.

And--for unknown reasons----I could NOT use a USB flash drive installer made from a known good official Windows 7 ISO using Rufus. The installation would stop midway through the "Windows is expanding files" stage.

I instead had to use Rufus to make a USB flash drive installer, pointing Rufus to an ISO I personally made from a previously burned Win 7 installation DVD that had SP1 slipstreamed into it. That did not stall at "Windows is expanding files".

I have no idea why one method failed and the other worked.

Thanks for the info Ignatzatsonic.

I've seen a couple posts saying the install seemed a little temperamental when using UEFI.
My OS SSD is only 250GB anyway so probably wouldn't need to use UEFI. Aside from being able to use an OS drive over 2TB and the increased partition limit, Do you think it provides any other benefit over legacy BIOS/MBR on the OS drive?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do you think it provides any other benefit over legacy BIOS/MBR on the OS drive?

From personal experience?

No.

The only real reason I tried it is that I knew it had supposed benefits and I figured since I rebuild very rarely, I may as well go with the latest and greatest.

All I know is what I read and it still confuses me. My new build has many more choices and sub-menus in the UEFI menus than my old PC (i5-2500 with MBR boot disk). I'm just avoiding most of the choices since I don't understand. I don't want to get in a jam that prevents me from booting or gets me off into unknown territory and it looks like that would be very easy to do, considering the complexity of the menus.

Here's a pretty good read on UEFI; technical but intended for laymen.

https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/

 

[Brds7t7]

Do you think it provides any other benefit over legacy BIOS/MBR on the OS drive?

From personal experience?

No.

The only real reason I tried it is that I knew it had supposed benefits and I figured since I rebuild very rarely, I may as well go with the latest and greatest.

All I know is what I read and it still confuses me. My new build has many more choices and sub-menus in the UEFI menus than my old PC (i5-2500 with MBR boot disk). I'm just avoiding most of the choices since I don't understand. I don't want to get in a jam that prevents me from booting or gets me off into unknown territory and it looks like that would be very easy to do, considering the complexity of the menus.

Here's a pretty good 3 or 4 page read on UEFI:

https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/

Thanks, that looks like a great article, I will have a read through that all later this evening.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

One major problem with this entire UEFI thing is the lack of consistent terminology and interface design across the motherboard manufacturers.

Each motherboard manufacturer uses its own terms for any random individual specification or configuration choice within the UEFI interface.

The UEFI designers may refer to X. AsRock may refer to that as Y and Gigabyte as Z and Asus as your mama.

So, instructions from someone who is slick on Asus may not help you much if you are on AsRock, MSI, or Gigabyte. The Asus choices don't exist in the Gigabyte board menus.

Leaving aside the decades-old fact that board manufacturers still don't use competent native English speakers to write their English language manuals and documents. They all read like they were translated from Swahili to Hawaiian and then to English via Google. Not pretty.

Why this is tolerated has been a mystery to me for 20 years. All your bytes are now belong to us.

 

[Brds7t7]

Leaving aside the decades-old fact that board manufacturers still don't use competent native English speakers to write their English language manuals and documents. They all read like they were translated from Swahili to Hawaiian and then to English via Google. Not pretty.

:roflmao: I did notice that with a Gigabyte board I bought not long ago. It did seem as though they had used Google Translate, as there seemed to be a lot of silly mistakes.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...The UEFI designers may refer to X. AsRock may refer to that as Y and Gigabyte as Z and Asus as your mama...

:roflmao::roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:

Thanks for the belly laugh I got from that; I so needed it! In the case of ASUS, that is SO true!

...Leaving aside the decades-old fact that board manufacturers still don't use competent native English speakers to write their English language manuals and documents. They all read like they were translated from Swahili to Hawaiian and then to English via Google. Not pretty.

Why this is tolerated has been a mystery to me for 20 years. All your bytes are now belong to us.

The Chinese are the absolute worst when it comes to English for pretty much every product that comes from there. I occasionally have to buy items from Chinese vendors because I can't find them here in the SSA (Squabbling States of America, inaccurately known as the USA) and trying to get a straight answer to a question from most of them is like pulling teeth with rusty tweezers because they arrogantly think they can speak and understand English when, in fact, they cannot (most India based call centers aren't much better).

 

[Lia]

As far as I know, there are two options:
If your MBR disk includes the current OS, you can use Partition Wizard Boot Edition to convert it to GPT disk. However, after conversion, you system may fail to boot(but it seems not your case).
If your MBR disk is only a data disk, you can convert it to GPT without data loss in MiniTool Partition wizard.

 

[AddRAM]

There is no reason to convert your OS drive to GPT, and I would not even try.

Any storage drive over 2.2 GB of course has to be GPT.

 

[mjf]

There is no reason to convert your OS drive to GPT, and I would not even try.

Any storage drive over 2.2 GB of course has to be GPT.

For Windows 7 I would go along with that opinion. If your boot drive is > 2TB then you should be looking at GPT. But why would you want that size boot/OS drive. Many are now using SSDs for their OS drive and I'd say they would selecting, 128BG, 256GB or 512GB. You can still have the advantages of UEFI firmware but still with leagacy BIOS/MBR booting.

I know virtually nothing about Windows 10 and the GPT/MBR boot decision may be different.

 

[ThrashZone]

Good article
My favorite part and device to make life as simple as possible
Amazon.com: Vantec 2.5-Inch Dual Bay Trayless SATA III - 6G Mobile Rack (MRK-225S6-BK): Computers & Accessories

If you absolutely must have more than one OS per computer, at least have one OS per disk. If you’re reasonably comfortable with how BIOS-style booting works and you don’t think you need Secure Boot, it’s pretty reasonable to use BIOS-compatible booting rather than UEFI-style booting in this situation on a UEFI-capable system. You’ll probably have less pain to deal with and you won’t really lose anything. With one OS per disk you can also mix UEFI-native and BIOS-compatible installations.

 

[Brds7t7]

Thanks for all the info guys, very helpful.

Thrash, I had a look at that item but it seems to be triple the price on Amazon UK.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0...C_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Vantec+evo

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks for all the info guys, very helpful.

Thrash, I had a look at that item but it seems to be triple the price on Amazon UK.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0...C_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=Vantec+evo

Many companies make similar docks like that one so you should be able to find something you can use on your side of the pond that won't cost you a kidney or two.

 

[Brds7t7]

Thanks LF, have to admit I don't really know all that much about hotswap bays as I've never used one. What exactly are they for?
Is it to switch out different drives while the PC is still powered on?

 

[Layback Bear]

Brds7t7
I don't believe anybody is telling your where to buy anything.

I personally use HotSwap Bays and recommend them. Of course if you choose to use them you can also choose where to buy them.

My HotSwap Bays connect to the motherboard Sata ports so the speed is good. Just like a internal drive. Which is quite handy when doing backups.

Yes you can swap HotSwap drive bays with the computer running.
Most of the time I still shut down and then do the swap. I'm paranoid.
It only takes a couple of minutes to shut down, swap drives and boot.
My SSD's don't seem to care one way or the other.
Older hard drive might care but I don't have any to test.

I'm think that the Lady uses hard drives.

 

[alphaniner]

@Brds7t7
In the OS, you treat a hotswap drive like any removable storage: it needs to be safely removed.

The only caveat is that your SATA controller must be in AHCI mode (or RAID mode) for hotswap to work.

 

[Brds7t7]

Thanks Layback,
I don't think I'd buy one at the moment anyway, but always nice to get some info for possible future use. I have a new build coming up in the next few months, just got a couple more components to buy, so any suggestions are always helpful.

Is there any risk of data loss when using these hotswap bays whilst the system is powered up? Or do they treat the HDD's similar to a removable drive?