What settings you need to make before you start installing Windows 10 will depend on which BIOS version your motherboard uses and what type of hard drive is installed in the computer. Based on this data, you can create the correct installation media and correctly change the BIOS or UEFI BIOS settings.

How to find out the type of hard drive

Hard drives are mainly divided into two types:

  • MBR - a disk that has a bar in volume - 2 GB. If this memory size is exceeded, then all extra megabytes will remain unused in the reserve, it will not be possible to distribute them between disk partitions. But to the benefits of this type includes support for both 64-bit and 32-bit systems. Therefore, if you have a single-core processor installed that only supports a 32-bit OS, you can only use the MBR;
  • A GPT disk does not have such a small memory limit, but at the same time, only a 64-bit system can be installed on it, and not all processors support such a bit depth. You can only install the system on a GPT partitioned disk if you have a newer BIOS version - UEFI. If the board installed in your device does not support the required version, then this markup will not work for you.

To find out what mode your disk is currently in, you need to go through the following steps:

  1. Expand the Run window by pressing the Win+R key combination.

    Open the Run window by pressing Win+R

  2. Use the diskmgmt.msc command to switch to the standard disk and partition management program.

    Run command diskmgmt.msc

  3. Expand disk properties.

    Open the properties of the hard drive

  4. In the window that opens, click on the "Volumes" tab and, if all the lines are empty, use the "Fill" button to fill them.

    Click the "Fill" button

  5. The "Partition Style" line contains the information we need - the type of partitioning of the hard disk.

    We look at the value of the line "Section Style"

How to change hard drive type

You can independently change the type of hard disk from MBR to GPT or vice versa using the built-in Windows tools, but on the condition that it is possible to delete the main partition of the disk - the system partition on which the operating system itself is installed. You can erase it only in two cases: if the drive to be converted is connected separately and is not involved in the system, that is, it is installed on another hard drive, or the installation process is in progress new system and the old one can be deleted. If the disk is connected separately, then the first method is suitable for you - through disk management, and if you want to complete this process during OS installation, then use the second option - using the command line.

Through Disk Management


By executing commands

This option can also be used not during the installation of the system, but still it is better suited for this particular case:

Motherboard Type Detection: UEFI or BIOS

Information about which mode your board is in, UEFI or BIOS, can be found on the Internet, focusing on its model and other data known about the board. If this is not possible, then turn off the computer, turn it on and press the Delete key on the keyboard during boot to enter boot menu. If the interface of the menu that opens will contain pictures, icons or effects, then in your case more a new version BIOS - UEFI.

This is what UEFI looks like

Otherwise, we can conclude that the BIOS is being used.

This is what the BIOS looks like

The only difference between BIOS and UEFI that you will encounter during the installation of a new operating system, these are the names of the installation media in the downloads list. In order for the computer to start turning on from the installation flash drive or disk, and not from the hard drive, as it does by default, you must manually change the boot order through the BIOS or UEFI. In the BIOS, the usual media name should be in the first place, without any prefixes and additions, and in UEFI, the media whose name begins with UEFI should be placed in the first place. Everything, no more differences until the end of the installation is not expected.

Installing the installation media first

Preparing the installation media

To create a media you will need:

  • an image of the system that suits you, which you need to choose based on the bitness of the processor (32-bit or 64-bit), the type of hard disk (GTP or MBR) and the version of the system that is most suitable for you (home, extended, etc.);
  • a blank disk or flash drive, at least 4 GB in size;
  • third-party program Rufus, with which the media will be formatted and configured.

Download and open the Rufus application and, using the data obtained above in the article, select one of the settings packages: for BIOS and MBR disk, for UEFI and MBR disk, or for UEFI and GPT disk. For an MBR disk, change the file system to NTFS, and for a GPR disk, change to FAT32. Do not forget to specify the path to the file with the system image, and then click the "Start" button and wait for the process to finish.

Set the correct parameters for media creation

Installation process

So, if you have prepared the installation media, figured out what type of disk and BIOS version you have, then you can proceed to install the system:

  1. Insert the media into the computer, turn off the device, start the power-on process, enter the BIOS or UEFI, and set the media to the first place in the boot list. More about this in the paragraph "Defining the type motherboard: UEFI or BIOS" located earlier in the same article. After finishing setting up the download list, save your changes and exit the menu.

    Change the boot order in BIOS or UEFI

  2. The standard installation process will begin, select all the parameters you need, system versions and others necessary settings. When you are prompted to choose one of the further paths, upgrade or manual installation, select the second option to be able to work with hard disk partitions. If you do not need it, then you can simply update the system.

    Complete the installation process

Video: installing the system on a GTP disk

Installation problems

If you have problems installing the system, namely, a notification appears that it cannot be installed on the selected hard drive, then the reason may be as follows:

  • the system bit depth is incorrectly selected. Remember that a 32-bit OS is not suitable for GTP disks, and a 64-bit OS is not suitable for single-core processors;
  • an error was made during the creation of the installation media, it is defective, or the system image used to create the media contains errors;
  • the system is installed for the wrong disk type, convert it to desired format. How to do this is described in the paragraph "How to change the type of hard disk", located above in the same article;
  • an error was made in the list of downloads, that is, the installation media was not selected in UEFI mode;
  • installation is done in IDE mode, it must be changed to ACHI. This is done in the BIOS or UEFI, in the SATA config section.

Installing to an MBR or GTP disk in UEFI or BIOS mode is not much different, the main thing is to correctly create the installation media and configure the boot order list. The rest of the steps are no different from the standard installation of the system.

A friend brought me his laptop Lenovo and asked me to install on it Windows 10 instead of Windows 8. By the way, the “eight” has been on it since the moment of purchase in the store. This laptop It has Bios UEFI. I already told you once, laptops with such a BIOS.
So, I inserted my bootable USB flash drive with Windows into this laptop. Then I set it in Bios so that the boot from the USB flash drive was successful. I'm going to install.

At first, everything goes as usual:

I choose the largest partition on the hard disk in terms of volume, where I will install the system. And then I find that the “Next” button is not active. At the bottom I see a warning: “”. Click here" Show details”:

An error window appears: "":

Now I will explain what this error means. And how can you still install Windows in this situation:

GPT(GUID Partition Table)- this is new standard placement of partition tables on the hard drive. Most modern laptops that come pre-installed with Windows 8 or Windows 10 use this standard.

To install Windows 10 on a GPT disk of a laptop with UEFI BIOS from a bootable USB flash drive, one of the following conditions must be met:

1) either it was UEFI flash drive(created in a special way. For example, using the program Rufus)

2) or, if the flash drive is not UEFI, then you need to convert hard drive from GPT standard to legacy MBR standard

I had a regular bootable flash drive with an operating system (not UEFI), and I didn’t want to redo it at all. Therefore, I decided to use the second option - convert laptop hard drive. This is done at the time of installing the OS using command line.

Important: during the conversion process, all data from the hard disk will be deleted! Even if your disk is divided into several partitions (for example, “Local Disk C” and “Local Disk D”), then all these partitions will be deleted! Therefore, if you, for example, have some important personal files on drive D, then it’s better to cancel the installation, then drop these files somewhere on a USB flash drive or external hard disk, and only then continue.

In my case, on Lenovo laptop there was also a hidden section with a rollback program to the “store state”. After converting the hard drive from GPT to MBR, it will also become inoperable. When I warned the owner of the laptop about this, he said that he was not going to return to Windows 8 - he asked me to put him either a "seven" or a "ten".

The instructions for installing Windows on a laptop given in the article are relevant for both Windows 10, and for Windows 7.

So, I told you about the reason for the error: “ Windows cannot be installed to this drive. Selected disk has GPT partition style". He also warned about the consequences of converting a hard disk from GPT to MBR. Now let's continue with our installation:

After encountering an error about the GPT partition style − calling the command line by pressing the keyboard shortcut Shift+F10(on my laptop I had to press Fn+Shift+F10):

In the black window that opens, type the command diskpart and press the key Enter on keyboard:

Now you need to select the hard drive that we will convert. First find out his number. To do this, enter the command list disk and press the key Enter:

In my case, the system detected two disks. But it is clear from the volume that Disk 0 is the hard disk of a computer Disc 1- this is my personal flash drive with which I currently install Windows.

Naturally, we will work with Disk 0. Therefore, on the command line, write the following command: sel dis 0 and press the Enter key:

Then we enter the command clean and press the Enter key. The hard disk will be completely cleaned, including all files and partitions:

Now enter the command and press the Enter key. Thus, we converted the disk to the MBR standard:

After that, enter again exit and again press Enter:

We return to our window with sections and click here “ Refresh". Then press the button " Further”:

We see the following window:

We can immediately click “Next” and the Windows installation process will begin. Can we first create the number of partitions we need on the hard drive by clicking the “ Create”:

In any case, the process of installing Windows on a laptop should go on without problems:

Today we will figure out how to install any modern version of Windows (including Windows 7 or Windows 10) on a hard drive with a GPT partition table on an outdated computer with a BIOS that does not support modern. The need to perform such a trick arose when trying to install Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 on an HP DL380 G8 server (HP DL servers do not yet support EFI) with local disks that have a total RAID 5 capacity greater than 4TB. At standard installation Windows to a disk with MBR partitioning, only 2 TB are available in the system. It will not be possible to allocate or access the remaining 2 TB of disk space from under Windows. The only way to take advantage of all the available disk space is to convert the disk partition to GPT.

This article describes how to configure Windows to boot from a GPT hard drive on a computer with a classic BIOS (which does not have UEFI) or in Legacy BIOS mode. The Windows operating system cannot boot from GPT disks on older BIOS system X. To get around this limitation, we will use the technique of transferring the BCD bootloader of Windows to a separate small USB flash drive (or HDD disk) with the MBR partition table. This flash drive will only be used to start the Windows bootloader, which must then transfer control to the main Windows image located on the GPT partitioned disk. The instruction is universal and should work both in Windows 7 and Windows 10 and any other supported 32 and 64 editions of Windows.

Benefits of GPT over MBR

What are the benefits of using GUID Partition Table (GPT)- a new format for placing partition tables on a hard disk. The GPT partition table allows you to bypass a number of limitations of the classic MBR partition table. Let's list the main points:

  • Support for hard drives larger than 2.2 TB(maximum available disk size for GPT is 9.4 ZetaBytes (9.4 × 1021 bytes))
  • Support up to 128 partitions on disk (only 4 partitions in MBR)
  • High reliability, achieved by duplicating the partition table in several places on the disk and checking the partition table using cyclic redundant parity check (CRC). Thus, the structure of the disk partition will not be lost if the first sectors of the disk are damaged.
  • No need to use logical partitions subject to various errors

Booting Windows from a GPT Disk

According to official documentation Microsoft http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463525.aspx , all its operating systems since Windows Server 2003 SP1 support GPT volumes as data disks, however booting from GPT volumes only 64-bit versions of Windows installed on motherboards with support for the new UEFI specification (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) will be able to. Thus, it will not be possible to install or boot Windows from a GPT disk on older computers with a classic BIOS.

Advice. There are several workarounds, allowing you to boot Windows 10 / 7 x64 on BIOS systems from a GPT disk. For this you need to use boot disk, containing a UEFI development environment emulator - DUET (Developer's UEFI Environment) that mimics EFI. In this configuration Computer BIOS starts booting with SYSLINUX installed, which boots the UEFI emulator (DUET). DUET, in turn, calls the standard Windows boot loader - bootx64.efi. It is also possible to transfer the disk to hybridMBR mode (hybrid mbr) using the Linux utility gdisk. However, in both cases, the procedure is quite complicated and requires the user to have a good knowledge of the Linux OS.

Once again, we note an important fact that should be learned forever: booting Windows x64 from a GPT disk is only possible on a system with UEFI.

Thus, if your computer is based on BIOS, and you need its disk to contain a GPT partition table, the easiest way is to add another hard disk (regular or SSD) with MBR partitioning to the system, install Windows on it and then boot already from him.

We will try to slightly modify this technique. For this we need USB flash drive or a small SD card (at least 64 MB) with MBR markup, on which we will place the Windows boot manager - bootmgr. This bootable flash drive will provide the initial system boot and transfer control to the main system bootloader located on the GPT volume.

Important. The system must support booting from a USB flash drive or SD card at the BIOS level.

Thus, we will be able to ensure the download of any (both 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows !!! ) from a GPT disk on a non-EFI BIOS system.

Installing Windows on a GPT disk on a computer with BIOS

Let's say we have a BIOS (non-UEFI) computer that uses the new GPT partition table on its hard drive. When you try to install Windows on a gpt drive on such a computer, the Windows Installer will throw an error:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk the selected disk is of the GPT Partition Style

The Russian version has an error:

Advice. You can convert a disk from MBR to GPT with the loss of all data by pressing the Shift + F10 combination on the Windows installation screen. And run the following commands on the command line:
diskpart
select disk 0 (if there is one hard disk in the system)
clean (clear the contents of the disk)
convert gpt (convert partition table to GPT)

Installing Windows 10/8.1/7 directly on a GPT disk in such a situation is possible only in UEFI mode through emulation of this environment using DUET. But in this mode, only 64-bit versions of Windows can be installed, and the procedure itself, as we said above, is rather complicated.

In this case, it is much easier to install Windows on an MBR disk in the usual mode, and then convert it to GPT using the utility gptgen.

Gptgen - convert the disk partition table from MBR to GPT without deleting partitions

The Windows Disk Management console allows you to convert a disk from MBR to GPT partitioning only "blank" unpartitioned disks. The console will not allow you to convert partitions on a disk that already has an OS installed.

To convert a hard disk from MBR to GPT online, you can use a small utility that allows you to convert the partition table format on the fly without the need to delete all partitions (without losing data).

Important. Before performing the conversion, it is highly recommended copy all critical data to external media. And although, I have not yet encountered the incorrect operation of the utility gptgen, which would lead to a complete collapse of the file system, I recommend that all users still save their important data before converting the partition table, so that later there would be no complaints against the author of the article 🙂 .

Download the gptgen utility, and extract it to an arbitrary directory (for example, c:\tools\gptgen-1.1).


So, the conversion of the partition table to GPT was successful!

Transferring the Windows bootloader to a USB flash drive

We restart the computer and make sure that the BIOS system cannot boot from a hard disk with a GPT table. That's how it should be! We connect a small USB flash drive or SD card to the system. We boot from the installation CD / USB disk with Windows (both the installation disk with Windows 10 and Win 7 will do, as in our case) and on the installation screen we press Shift+F10 by opening a command line console:

  1. Run the command: diskpart
  2. Let's display a list of disks in the system: list disk . In this case, the system has two disks: Disk 0 is a 40 GB hard disk with a system (* in the Gpt column indicates that this disk contains a GPT partition table) and Disk 1 is a 1 GB USB flash drive.
  3. Let's deal with partitions on disks and the letters that are assigned to them. Select a hard disk: select disk 0 and display a list of partitions on it: list volume
    Based on the size of the partitions, it can be understood that the system is installed on partition 2 (Volume 2), which is assigned the letter D: (this letter may not correspond to the letter of the system drive that is displayed in Windows itself)
  4. Let's create the necessary partitions on the flash drive:
    select disk 1 (select a flash drive)
    clean (clean up the contents of the disk)
    create partition primary size=1000 (create a primary partition on a USB flash drive, in this case 1 GB in size)
    format (we format it in file system FAT32. Do not use the NTFS file system for the USB flash drive, because will not boot from this partition)
    select partition 1 (select the first partition on the flash drive)
    active (mark the section as active)
    list volume (we will display the list of sections again. In this example, you can see that the section we created has an index of 3)
    select volume 3 (select it)
    assign letter=G (assign it a free drive letter, like G)


    list volume (make sure that the partition on the flash drive is assigned the letter G)

    exit (Exit the diskpart utility)
  5. Copy the boot environment files from the system disk to the flash drive: bcdboot d:\Windows /l en-us /s g:
  6. Let's write the boot code to the USB flash drive to ensure that bootmgr (Windows Boot Manager) is loaded: bootsect / nt60 G: / mbr / force
  7. Reboot

Go into the BIOS and set your USB (SD) drive to the highest boot priority. Save your changes. If you did everything correctly, the system should boot correctly. You can check that your Windows is on a GPT disk in Disk Manager ( diskmgmt.msc) by opening the properties of the system drive. The Volumes tab indicates that the partition table type is GPT (Partition style - GUID Partition Table)

This technique of transferring the bootloader to a separate USB flash drive will allow you to take full advantage of the GPT partition table and use the full capacity of the hard disk (more than 2.2 TB in size) on systems with a BIOS (without a UEFI environment). A similar trick can be done with the following (even 32-bit versions) of Windows:

  • Windows 10 / Windows Server 2016
  • Windows 8, Windows 8.1
  • Windows Server 2012 / 2012 R2
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows Server 2003 SP1 / 2003 (64-bit)
  • Windows XP x64

Disclaimer. The article is offered as is. All of these operations have been tested on a virtual machine - no testing has been done on real machines. If someone tests a similar configuration and operation of the system on physical hardware and writes about the results, I will be very happy. According to the available information, some old computers with BIOS basically do not allow working with GPT disks, such disks are simply not detected.

You also need to understand that every time you turn on / reboot the system, your USB flash drive with the MBR table and bootloader on it must be connected to the computer, otherwise Windows simply will not boot.

This documentation has been archived and is no longer maintained.

Windows Setup: Apply MBR or GPT Partition Style

When you install Windows on a UEFI-based computer using Windows Setup, your hard drive's partition style must be configured to support UEFI mode or legacy BIOS compatibility mode.

For example, if you receive the error message "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The specified drive does not use the GPT partition style" means your computer is booted in UEFI mode, but the hard drive is not configured to support this mode. You can do the following:

    Reboot your computer in Legacy BIOS Compatibility Mode. This option allows you to keep the existing section style. See the section for more information.

    Reformat the drive for UEFI support using the GPT partition style. This option allows you to use the computer's UEFI firmware capabilities.

    You can do it yourself by reformatting the drive using the instructions below; and if you need to save data, use a third-party program to convert the disk to GPT format.

Why should I convert my drive?

Many computers support the ability to use a UEFI version as the BIOS, which speeds up boot and shutdown and provides a number of security benefits. To boot your PC in UEFI mode, you will need a drive formatted using the GPT format.

Many computers are UEFI ready but have a Compatibility Support Module (CSM) that is configured to use an older BIOS version. This BIOS version was developed in the 1970s and implements the compatibility of various older hardware and network configurations; it requires the disk to be in MBR format.

However, the basic MBR disk format does not support disks larger than 4 TB. It's also difficult to set up more than four partitions. The GPT disk format allows you to configure drives larger than 4 terabytes (TB) and allows you to easily set up as many partitions as you need.

Reformatting a disk with a different partition style

Removing and converting a drive using Windows Setup

    When choosing an installation type, specify Selective.

    On the screen Choose a partition to install Windows, highlight each partition on the disk, and select Delete. The disk will show a single area of ​​unallocated space.

    Select unallocated space and click the button Further. Windows will detect that the computer was booted in UEFI mode and will reformat the drive using the GPT format before starting the installation.

Cleaning the disk and converting it to GPT manually:

    Turn off your PC and insert the Windows installation DVD or USB key into it.

    Boot PC from DVD or USB key in UEFI mode. See the section for more information.

    In Windows Setup, press the keyboard shortcut Shift+F10 to open a command prompt window.

    Open the diskpart tool:

    Specify the drive to be reformatted.

    Select a drive and reformat it.

Progress is moving forward, the amount of information that we need to process is increasing, and with it the capacity of computer disks is increasing. Hard drives larger than 2 TB and with a large number of partitions will no longer surprise anyone, but have the developers taken care of the software for them? Let's look at the hard drive formats that are currently used to store a set of partitions and to boot the operating system.

What are MBR and GPT hard drive standards and what are their features

Before you start with hard drive or solid state drive, it must be formatted into multiple logical partitions. Partition sizes depend on how much space you need to allocate for the operating system and how much for other programs and other files. After breaking down into sections, information is recorded in them according to a certain standard. At the moment, 2 standards are used - MBR and GPT.

Externally, MBR and GPT hard drives often look the same.

Advantages and disadvantages of each standard

MBR (main boot record) - this standard appeared in the early 80s along with the DOS operating system. It includes special programming code, a data set with information about the operating system boot, and a hard disk partition table. The MBR standard is simple, but is now considered obsolete. Drives of this standard can work with both BIOS and UEFI. Its main disadvantages are as follows:

  • partition size cannot be larger than 2.2 TB;
  • you can create no more than four main partitions on your hard drive;
  • the boot record of the operating system is stored in one specific place, which is why it can be either accidentally overwritten or damaged by a virus.

GPT (or GUID Partition Table) is a new partition table storage standard that has been proposed by Intel for use with UEFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). A feature of the GPT standard is the duplication of the table of contents and the partition table. Compared to MBR, this standard has the following advantages:

  • supports the maximum volume of a partition that is unattainable for the MBR standard;
  • on one hard disk, you can create many partitions (for operating systems of the Windows families - up to 128);
  • due to the fact that the master boot record has a duplicate, it is easy to recover if damaged and almost impossible to accidentally overwrite or inject malicious code into it;
  • operating system loading Windows families Versions 8 and older are much faster.

How to find out the type of disk in a laptop or computer

Consider ways to determine the type of disk in a laptop or personal computer.

Determining the type of disk using the Disk Management utility

In system Windows is easier just determine the hard disk layout standard using the Disk Management utility.


 The main window of the Disk Management utility contains basic information about the disks installed in the computer

In Windows 10, to launch the utility, you need to click right click click on the Start menu and select Disk Management from the context menu.

In Windows 7, right-click on the "Computer" icon. Next, select the "Manage" context menu item, and in the "Computer Management" window - the "Disk Management" section.

An alternative way to launch the Disk Management utility is to press the Win + R key combination, and then in the Run window, type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.

Enter the diskmgmt.msc command to launch the Disk Management utility

We are waiting for the Disk Management utility to start. In its main window, all disks and partitions that are currently in the computer will be displayed. Right-click on the name of the disk you are interested in (it is located at the bottom of the "Disk Management" window), select "Properties" in the context menu and go to the "Volumes" tab.


 Select the desired disk, right-click on it, open context menu and select the line "Properties" in it

In the Disk Information section, you will see the option "Partition Style: Table with Partition GUIDs (GUID)" or "Partition Style: Master Boot Record (MBR)". The first option means that the disk has a GPT partitioning standard, and the second means that the disk has an MBR master boot record.

For a GPT disk, the information window looks like this:


 For a GPT hard disk, the style is "Table with Partition GUIDs (GUID)"

And for an MBR disk - like this:

An MBR disk has the Master Boot Record (MBR) style.

Determining the disk type using the command line

The partition format of a hard disk (GPT or MBR) can be determined using the command line. To do this, you need to run the command line console as an administrator, enter the diskpart command and press the Enter key. After loading the utility, enter the list disk command and confirm the action with the Enter key.


 To view a list of hard drives, run the diskpart command

Among the hard disk options displayed is a GPT column. A drive that uses the GPT standard is marked with an asterisk. The rest of the disks not marked with an asterisk are partitioned using the MBR standard.

Determining Disk Type Using AOMEI Partition Assistant

AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is a free utility for working with hard drives and solid state drives in the Windows operating system. The program has extensive functionality and can convert GPT to MBR disk formats and vice versa.

Once launched, the utility displays all drives and their logical partitions. At the bottom of the window, under the name of each disk, its type is shown: GPT or MBR.


 The lower part of the utility window shows all the hard drives of the computer with their types, as well as the logical partitions of each drive.

The methods described above will help you easily find out which standard a particular drive belongs to.

How to install Windows 10 on a GPT or MBR disk

Before you start installing the Windows 10 operating system on your Personal Computer, you need to figure out which firmware interface its motherboard supports. This can be a UEFI Extensible Firmware Interface or a Basic Firmware Interface. BIOS firmware. Then you should decide on the standard for partitioning a hard drive or solid state drive. Installing Windows 10 starts by copying files from the installation media, which can be either a flash drive or optical disc(CD) .

Motherboard Type Detection: UEFI or BIOS

Users often face the problem of determining the type of motherboard interface. Let's see how to recognize it correctly.

BIOS is easy to distinguish from UEFI: it looks like the old one software and uses few colors. Mostly blue, black and white. Also, there are few settings in the BIOS and there is no option to select a boot mode with UEFI and Legacy options.


 Can't select boot mode in BIOS settings
UEFI system interface looks more modern than BIOS

Choosing the Best Standard for Installing Windows 10

On new computers whose motherboard supports the UEFI system interface, it is recommended that you install Windows 10 on a GPT-labeled drive. This will eliminate data loss issues and ensure faster downloads. Separately, it should be noted that if you need to install a second operating system, then it can only be Windows version 8 and higher. Older systems will cause a boot failure.

If the computer is old or you need to install two or more operating systems younger than Windows 8 on it, then it is better to leave the disk MBR-partition, but you will have to additionally configure UEFI (how exactly will be described below). Be aware that 32-bit versions of Windows operating systems do not support the GPT standard.

Preparing the installation media

Before installing the operating system on a computer, we must prepare media containing the necessary installation files. Let's say we have an operating system image in ISO format and an empty flash drive with a capacity of 8 GB or more. To correctly write the image to a USB flash drive, it is recommended to use the Rufus program. It does not have unnecessary settings that can mislead the user, perfectly configures the bootable flash drive and avoids many errors when the data is not readable or the BIOS and UEFI cannot recognize it.

Before starting the recording process Windows image to a flash drive, configure the necessary settings in the program window

Creating installation media consists of the following steps:

  • select the flash drive on which the installation image of the operating system will be written;
  • in the drop-down menu "Partition scheme" select the type of disk layout (GPT or MBR) and the type of system interface of the motherboard (BIOS or UEFI);
  • in the "File system" menu, select FAT32, the "Cluster size" parameter is left by default;
  • check the boxes "Quick format" and "Create a boot disk";
  • select the iso file of the system image and click the "Start" button.

After the image recording is completed, we will receive media that can now be used to install Windows on computers with the appropriate partition layout and system interface type.

Installing using classic BIOS on a disk with MBR partition style

Installing the operating system using the BIOS interface on an MBR disk will not cause any problems. You just need to follow the following instructions:

  • turn off the computer and connect the installation media;
  • when the computer boots up, enter the BIOS, usually for this you need to hold down the F2 or Del key;
  • find the Boot tab and select as the primary boot device 1st boot device installation media;
  • save your settings, reboot, and follow the prompts for a classic Windows installation.

 Select the device from which Windows will be installed

No more manipulation is required. When installing the operating system, you can format the disk if there was any information on it before.

Installing using UEFI on a disk with MBR partition style

When installing Windows 10 using UEFI on a disk with MBR partition style, there may be problems. It will take more fine tuning UEFI, therefore, if it is possible to convert the disk to GPT format, then it is better to do it right away. For those who still want to keep the MBR disk format, you need to switch the boot mode from EFI to Legacy. For this:

  • in the Boot Menu BIOS, select the option to boot from USB media without UEFI in the name and move it to the first place in the boot settings;
  • in UEFI, instead of the EFI boot mode, set the Legacy or CSM mode.

 Select boot mode Legacy

The installation media must have an MBR partitioning scheme. After completing these steps, the system reads it, and the installation will begin.

Installing using UEFI on a disk with GPT partition style

Using UEFI, you can install an operating system on a GPT disk. Windows system 10 is 64-bit only. The installation process using UEFI is not much different from the similar process in the BIOS. Let's look at the key points:

  • when the computer boots, we go into UEFI, usually for this you need to hold down the F2 or Del key on the keyboard, and proceed with the setup;
  • in UEFI, the UEFI Mode boot mode must be selected and the Secure Boot mode must be enabled;
  • in the Boot tab, the installation media should be in the first place.

 Enable Secure Boot Mode in Boot Options Settings

The hard drive on which the operating system will be installed must have GPT markup, otherwise it will have to be converted to this format. We will talk about the problems associated with converting the hard disk layout below.

How to change the partition type of a hard drive

There are various methods of changing the hard disk standard, but it is worth remembering that converting almost always leads to data loss, even if the program promises to leave the data safe and sound. Therefore, before starting the operation, save all important information on another disk or copy it to external devices.

Issues installing Windows on a particular type of drive

The main problem with installing the Windows 10 operating system is receiving notifications about the inability to continue or start the installation.


 Error message when converting from MBR to GPT appears before starting Windows Setup

When installing Windows, the following typical errors are possible:

  • errors related to system bitness: a 32-bit operating system is not suitable for installation on a GPT disk;
  • failure of the installation media or incorrect recording of information on it: you need to use another media or overwrite the current one;
  • for UEFI mode, a media with a name containing UEFI is not selected, and vice versa - for BIOS, a media with UEFI in the name is selected;
  • the bootloader of the installation media is formatted in the wrong format: the format must match the type of hard drive or solid state drive.

Changing disk format via command line

One of the fastest options for converting a disk from one format to another is conversion using command line utilities. Let's say you want to convert an MBR disk to GPT. Attention: all information contained on the disc will be deleted. This option can be successfully performed already during the installation of the operating system. After loading the Windows Installer, press the key combination Shift + F10, which opens command line, in which you need to sequentially enter and execute the following commands:

  • diskpart (disk management utility will start);
  • list disk (a list of disks will be displayed on the screen, you need to remember the disk number (N) where the operating system will be installed);
  • select disk N (select disk N);
  • clean (clean up the selected disk);
  • convert gpt (convert disk to GPT format);
  • exit (exit the disk management utility).

 Enter sequential commands to convert the disk format, waiting for each of them to complete

Changing the Format Using the Windows Disk Management Utility

This type of conversion requires Windows version 7 or later to be installed and running. Let's say you need to convert a disk from GPT to MBR format. This will require the Disk Management utility, which we discussed above. Do the following:



 Select and run the function "Convert to MBR Disk"

Programs for converting between GPT and MBR formats

In addition to the standard tools built into the Windows operating system, there are various third party programs to convert disc formats. Among them are Acronis Disk Director and Minitool Partition Wizard utilities. They allow you to convert the format without losing data. Let's take a closer look at the Minitool Partition Wizard program.


 Select the boot mode of the Minitool Partition Wizard utility

We create a boot drive with the image of the Minitool Partition Wizard utility and boot from it. Please note that in UEFI, Secure Boot must be disabled. After the download is complete, select the desired hard drive and click on the Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk line, which is located on the left in the Operations tab. Then we press the Apply button and wait for the end of the operation, which can take quite a long time.


 Select a disk and start the conversion with the command Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk

Sometimes the program fails to convert system disk, about which a corresponding warning is displayed. To solve this problem you need:

  • select the partition in which the operating system loader is located (usually it is located at the very beginning of the list and takes up to 500MB);
  • delete it and create the same partition in the FAT32 file system in this place;
  • repeat the conversion steps above.

Third party programs open additional features working with hard and solid state drives. In particular, they allow you to convert them to MBR and GPT formats without data loss if the standard functionality of the operating system does not work or is not available.

Video: working with hard disk partitions in the Minitool Partition Wizard

It is impossible to say for sure which of the technologies is better: the time-tested, but technically outdated MBR, or the new promising GPT. Both standards perform the same function: they store data on the boot of the operating system and the disk partition table. Each user must decide for himself what he needs from the hard disk, how many partitions will be on the disk and how big it will be, and whether he needs a new level of security and reliability implemented in the GPT standard.