How do I know if my computer is EFI capable?

[ginjaninja]

i want to create a gpt array but I just found out my computer needs to be efi capable.
that's a bios thing right?

 

[WyomingKnott]

Actually, it's a not-BIOS think. The Extensible Firmware Interface is a replacement for BIOS, with the intent of overcoming limitations of a standard that was set up decades ago.

The easiest way to find out if the mobo is efi capable is: READ THE MANUAL. Or even the manufacturer's description. There are very few EFI mobos to date. What model motherboard do you have?

You could look on the box for the picture on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface. No picture, no EFI.

Edit: I was wrong; some motherboards can support GPT when running Windows 7. You can't boot from a GPT disk, though.
Again: I'll be darned, you can boot with a BIOS boot partition. Why do you want to use GPT - got drives larger than 2 TB?

Here is a poster with some experience: http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/bios.html

 

[ginjaninja]

Are you saying it doesn't matter about the motherboard as long as I use windows 7?

looking at building a raid5 array of 1tb drives.
windows 7 64 bit
asus m4a87td/usb3 motherboard
I'm not looking to boot from it but I want to have it really big without having to split it into multiple volumes, just keeps everything a lot tidier.

 

[WyomingKnott]

No. Some motherboards can handle it with Win7, some can't. Take a look at the link; that person has a lot of experience with this and I have none.