Windows 10: Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk in Windows 10

How to: Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk in Windows 10

How to Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk in Windows 10


Information GPT (GUID Partition Table) and MBR (Master Boot Record) are two different partition styles that can be used for a disk.

MBR disks use the standard BIOS partition table. GPT disks use unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI).

This tutorial will show you different ways on how to convert a data disk from GPT to MBR in Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to convert GPT disk to MBR disk.



Note MBR vs GPT Basic Comparison:

[table][tr][td]MBR[/td] [td]GPT[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]Older partition style.[/td] [td]Newer partition style.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]All Windows support as data drive.[/td] [td]Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 support as data drive.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]All Windows can boot from.[/td] [td]Windows can't boot from unless installed with 64-bit and How to Clean Install Windows 10[/list][/td] [/tr] [tr][td]Supports up to 4 primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition with up to 128 logical volumes.[/td] [td]Supports up to 128 primary partitions.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]Supports up to 2TB for a partition.[/td] [td]Supports up to 256TB for a partition.[/td] [/tr] [tr][td]Removable media is MBR by default.[/td] [td]Removable media cannot convert to GPT.[/td] [/tr] [/table]

CONTENTS:

• Option One: Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free without Data Loss
• Option Two: Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using EaseUS Partition Master Free without Data Loss
• Option Three: Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using Disk Management with Data Loss
• Option Four: Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk Disk using Diskpart command with Data Loss

OPTION ONE [/i] Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free without Data Loss

1. If you haven't already, you will need to download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

2. Open MiniTool Partition Wizard, and click/tap on Launch Application. (see screenshot below)



3. Click/tap on the disk # (ex: Disk 4) of the GPT disk you want to convert to MBR, and click/tap on the Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk link in the left pane. (see screenshot below)



4. Click/tap on the Apply (check) button in the toolbar. (see screenshot below)



5. Click/tap on Yes to confirm. (see screenshot below)



6. The data disk will now start converting from GPT to MBR. (see screenshot below)



7. Click/tap on OK when it has successfully finished. (see screenshot below)



8. You can now close MiniTool Partition Wizard if you like.




OPTION TWO [/i] Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using EaseUS Partition Master Free without Data Loss
1. If you haven't already, you will need to download and install EaseUS Partition Master Free.

2. Open EaseUS Partition Master.

3. Click/tap on the disk # (ex: Disk 3) of the GPT disk you want to convert to MBR, and click/tap on the Convert GPT to MBR link in the left pane. (see screenshot below)



4. Click/tap on the Apply (check) button in the toolbar. (see screenshot below)



5. Click/tap on Yes to confirm. (see screenshot below)



6. The data disk will now start converting from GPT to MBR. (see screenshot below)



7. Click/tap on OK when it has successfully finished. (see screenshot below)



8. You can now close EaseUS Partition Master if you like.




OPTION THREE [/i] Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using Disk Management with Data Loss


Warning You will lose all data on the disk you are converting using this option.


1. Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type diskmgmt.msc in Run, and click/tap on OK to open Disk Management.

2. In the disk (ex: Disk 3) that you want to convert, right click or press and hold on each partition (volume) on the disk, and click/tap on Delete Volume until the disk shows as unallocated. (see screenshot above)


Note You can only convert a disk from MBR to GPT partition style in Disk Management if the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes.





3. Right click or press and hold on the disk # (ex: Disk 3) box of the GPT disk you want to convert to MBR, and click/tap on Convert to MBR Disk. (see screenshot below)



4. You can now create a New Simple Volume on the unallocated MBR disk. (see screenshot below)







OPTION FOUR [/i] Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk using Diskpart command with Data Loss


Warning You will lose all data on the disk you are converting using this option.

Be sure you verify the correct disk number of the disk you want to convert from Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) before starting this option.


1. Open either an command prompt at boot for what you want to use.

2. Type the command below, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
diskpart
3. Type the command below, and press Enter.
list disk
4. Type the command below, and press Enter.
select disk #



Note Substitute # in the command above with the actual disk number (ex: "3") of the disk you want to convert.

For example: select disk 3


5. Type the command below, and press Enter.
clean
6. Type the command below, and press Enter.
convert mbr
7. You can now create a New Simple Volume on the unallocated MBR disk.





That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Check if Disk is MBR or GPT in Windows
• How to Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk in Windows 10
• How to Convert Windows 10 from Legacy BIOS to UEFI without Data Loss
• How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 without Data Loss in Windows
• How to Convert FAT32 to NTFS without Data Loss in Windows

:)

 

3TB Drive format windows 10 not working

This is because your hard disk is MBR disk, you can check it in Disk Management.
which only supports 2 TB drive. so the only way to get your space backup is to convert your disk back to GPT disk. Disk management can only convert a disk to MBR when it is empty. Therefore, you need a third party software to

convert MBR to GPT on Windows 10 without affecting the OS, such as AOMEI Partition Assistant.after installing this software, the Convert mBR/GPT wizard will guide you through the process. How to Convert GPT to MBR or Convert MBR to GPT without Losing Data?

 

Windows Installation

On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks. If you use MBR disk, you will receive this error message: Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. You can convert MBR to GPT and try it again.

 

Yeah, you would think that Disk Management would be able to do so without data loss by now, but nope. *Sad

 

I looked up EaseUS free (just now) because I tried GPT to MBR once 6 months ago and the specific operation
(GPT to MBR) is only listed for NON-System Disks. It "is" added in a PAID version as a "new" feature.
As proof, I offer the following link:
<<EaseUS Partition Master Edition Comparison.>>

 

Hello Rick, *Smile

Correct. This tutorial is only for data disks, and not for the Windows OS disk.

You can use the tutorial below to convert the Windows OS disk to UEFI for GPT instead.

Convert Windows 10 from Legacy BIOS to UEFI without Data Loss Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

Recently I met an occasion where a Win10 installation on a GPT disk needed to be converted to MBR.
I think my experience may be of some help.

The target system was Win10 Enterprise, installed on an empty 300GB HD. The layout (as reported by "diskpart") was :
Code: Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 297 GB Healthy Boot Volume 2 Recovery NTFS Partition 450 MB Healthy Hidden Volume 3 FAT32 Partition 99 MB Healthy System[/quote]
Basically I followed "OPTION ONE" of Shawn Brink (the author of the original post).
Steps 1-3 were straightforward.
After clicking "Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk" in Step 3, a warning poped out :





Click "OK" to dismiss, then proceed to Step 4.
After clicking "Apply", another warning appeared soon :





Click "Restart Now" to proceed.
The restart triggered the conversion before loading the OS.
When the conversion was completed (in just one or two minutes), the system was restarted again.
But this time it CRASHED : some error message saying OS not found.

This is normal, because the conversion tool did not mark the system partition as "bootable".
Now :

• Boot the target system with the Win10 installation media (DVD/USB etc).
• Select language & click the "Next" button.
• Click the "Repair your computer" link.
• Click the "Troubleshoot" square.
• Click the "Command Prompt" square.
• At the command prompt, invoke the "diskpart" tool.
  • Locate the target partition by using the "select" and "list" commands.
  • Execute the "select partition x" command, where x is the target partition number.
  • Execute the "active" command to mark it as "bootable".
  • "exit" the "diskpart" tool.
• "exit" the command prompt.
• Click the "Startup Repair" square. The system will restart after the repair.
• Done.

After the fix, the layout of the target disk looked like :
Code: Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 1 Partition 450 MB Healthy Offline Volume 2 Partition 99 MB Healthy Offline Volume 3 C NTFS Partition 297 GB Healthy System[/quote]
Finally, a couple of remarks :

• The time required for the "Startup Repair" step varies on different systems. For the 300GB disk mentioned above, it was finished in less than a minute. On another case with 1TB HD, it took nearly 3 hours of heavy disk read-write to complete the operation.
• One downside of the method is worth notice : almost all of the functions in "Advanced startup" ("Start" -> "Settings" -> "Update & security" -> "Recovery" -> "Advanced startup") were gone after the conversion.

 

Hello anctop, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

This tutorial was meant to be used for a data disk, but thank you for sharing your results for an OS disk.