Understanding MBR and GPT 1). MBR (master boot record) 2).
GPT ( Globally Unique Identifire) partition table Over view of MBR and GPT Partitions Styles The mbr style was orginally developed for x86based computer systems and is by far the most common style in use at present. GPT on the other hand. was originally developed for 64-bit itanium based system. With the arrival of Windows Server 2008 both x86 32-bit and 64-bit systems support MBR and GPT partition styles. It is important to note, however, that 32-bit systems can only boot from MBR based disks and 64-bit systems can only boot from GPT disks. Understanding MBR Disks With MBR the first sector of the disk is reserved to store a partition table and the master boot record. The remainder of the disk is divided into partitions, information about which is stored in the partition table. MBR supports volume sizes up to 4TB. MBR on a basic disk supports two partition types, primary and extended. The primary partition has a file system created directly on it and is then either assigned a drive letter or mount point by which it is referenced by the user. An extended partition is divided into one or morelogical drives, each of which is then formatted and then assigned drive letter or mount point. A basic disk with MBR partition style can support either four primary partitions or three primary partitions and one extended partition (which in turn can support multiple logical volumes). Understanding GPT Disk GPT disks differ quite considerably from MBR disks. In terms of capability, GPT supports disks up to 18 Exabytes in size with up 128 partitions. GPT also differs from MBR in terms of layout. At the start of a GPT disk is an MBR. The MBR in this case, however, is provided purely so that the disk will be recognized by disk utilitiesthat do not recognize GPT disks. To an MBR disk utility, the disk will appear to be an MBR disk with a single partition taking up the entire disk space. Located immediately after the MBR is the primary GPT header. This header defines the blocks on the disk available for partitions and contains information about the number and respective sizes of any partitions on the disk. The GPT header also includes information about its own location on the disk drive and a pointer to a backup GPT header located in the final sectors of the drive. The backup GPT header is used in the event that the primary header becomes corrupted. Finally, the GPT header contains a CRC32 checksum of itself (including the partition table) so that the system firmware can verify the integrity of the header information before accessing the data on the disk. If the checksum fails, the firmware switches to the backup GPT header. If the checksum on backup GPT header also fails the disk is unusable. In between the primary GPT header at the start of the disk and backup GPT in the final sectors of the disk are the primary partitions. In addition to any data, each partition on a GPT disk has a header
containing information about the partition type, the start and end blocks of the partition and a unique partition GUID. There are a number of additional partitions often required on a GPT disk. These are the EFI system partition (ESP) and the Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR). The ESP must be present on the first disk in a system and is required to boot the operating system. The ESP is not mandatory on other disks. When the 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008 is installed both the ESP and MSR are created by the setup process. One important point of note regarding GPT is that it is not supported on removable disks such as USB and Firewire connected storagedevices or disks attached to storage clusters. Coverting GPT to MBR
To perform a conversion from the Disk Management interface, right click on the icon for the empty drive in the graphical view. If the disk is currently using MBR then the menu will provide the option to Convert to GPT Disk. Alternatively, if the disk is currently using the GPT partition style the Convert Disk to MBR menu option will be presented. In either case, selecting the conversion option will immediately and silently change the partition style. To perform the same task using diskpart, begin by listing the available disks:
DISKPART> list disk Disk ### -------Disk 0 Disk 1 Status ---------Online Online Size ------30 GB 10 GB Free ------0 B 10 GB Dyn --Gpt ---
Select the desired disk (in this case disk 1):
DISKPART> select disk 1 Disk 1 is now the selected disk.
Finally, convert the disk using the convert command followed by mbr or gpt depending on whether the disk is being converted to MBR or GPT partition style respectively:
DISKPART> convert mbr DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to MBR format. DISKPART> convert gpt DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format.
Type exit to close the diskpart session.
