How to know a disk is MBR or GPT

c553team

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May 2, 2011
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Hello,
Before I initialize my new 2TB HDD, I would like to know my previous HDD, also 2TB was done in GPT or MBR.
 
Solution

Diskpart will indeed, but it is not the most informative thing that I have ever seen. The output is
[fixed]
DISKPART> LIST DISK

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 75 GB 0 B[/fixed]

If Gpt is blank, then no GPT. However, if you go into Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management, select the Disk Management screen, right-click on the disk part (little box on the left, not the volume part) of the picture of the drive, and select Properties, you can read the "Partition Style" property in plain...

Diskpart will indeed, but it is not the most informative thing that I have ever seen. The output is
[fixed]
DISKPART> LIST DISK

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 75 GB 0 B[/fixed]

If Gpt is blank, then no GPT. However, if you go into Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management, select the Disk Management screen, right-click on the disk part (little box on the left, not the volume part) of the picture of the drive, and select Properties, you can read the "Partition Style" property in plain whatever-language-you-have-localized. Mine says "Master Boot Record (MBR)," which is pretty easy to read.
 
Solution


Is this in win7? In XP if I select properties, it gives the same dialog box as if I selected properties from the drive in device manager. There is no "partition style" located on this dialog box.
 

Nope. XP. Just did it on my machine here at work; XP SP2.

My bad: After the properties box comes up, select the tab labeled "Volumes." For me, that tab is blank if I go through Device Mangler.
 


Ah, ok, I see it. What is weird though is if I access the volumes tab from the device manager route, all fields just show a dash, but accessing the same tab via disk management shows all the info. make me wonder if it's just these stupid Dell's we use at work, LoL!
 

hugadoggie

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Mar 16, 2013
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In win 7 I had to do the added step of clicking on "hardware" tab then select the drive again, then click properties button then click on tab volumes then click populate button and then it lists it is MBR.

Thanks!
 

truerock

Distinguished
Jul 28, 2006
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18,820
I did this - looked at the properties of my VOL. I have a Windows 7 64-bit GPT disk
But it said:
Partition style: Master Boot Record (MBR)
Has anyone seen anything but "Partition style: Master Boot Record (MBR)"?