Why do you want to initialize disk?
When you use a new disk, you’ll receive a message that says “You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it,” prompting you to do so. Alternatively, you might prepare a disk for reuse. So, how does one go about initializing a disk? Here are three methods to go about it.
3 methods to initialize disk in Windows
Diskpart is one of Windows’ basic utilities with command lines. You can use it to manage your disk/partition/volume with a special command line, such as create/delete/format/extend/shrink partitions and initialize/convert disk, etc. It is more powerful than Windows Disk Management.
To use a new disk or wipe an existing disk, initializing the disk with Diskpart can work it out.
Step 1. You can press “WIN+R” and type “cmd” to open the prompt. Then, type diskpart in the prompt and press “Enter”.
• list disk
• select disk x
• attributes cleared successfully (it can move to the next step smoothly)
• online disk
• convert mbr or convert gpt (to change the selected disk to MBR format or GPT format according to your requirements).
Once you initialized the disk and convert the disk into MBR format or GPT format, you can create a partition on it, which is pragmatic. You can use Diskpart to create a partition for you.
Method 2. Initialize a disk with AOMEI Partition Assistant (GUI)
The Diskpart does have a good way to help you initialize a disk. But there still are many other ways to initialize a disk. For example, initializing a hard disk using AOMEI Partition Assistant could be simpler. A OMEI Partition Assistant Professional is a great alternative if you don’t like to use commands or Diskpart can’t initialize the target successfully.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Select the disk you want to initialize, right-click it. Then, select “Initialize Disk” in the pop-out menu.
Step 2. Select to initialize the disk to MBR/GPT. Click “OK”.
Step 3. Click ” the toolbar to confirm the operations.
The AOMEI Partition Assistant initializing disk with an intuitive interface is much simpler than using Windows Diskpart to initialize disk. Besides, you can use it to do more for partitioning a hard drive. And it supports most Windows systems, as for the Windows Server system, you can use the Server Edition.
Method 3. Initialize disk with AOMEI Partition Assistant command-line
• cd installation directory of AOMEI Partition Assistant (e.g. cd C:Program Files AOMEI Partition Assistant).
• partassist.exe /list ( To list all disks on your computer.)
• partassist.exe / init:1 /gpt (To convert Disk 1 into GPT disk style.)
Wait till the progress reaches 100%. It will tell you “The operation completed successfully”.
▪ “/init:1” means it initializes a disk as MBR.
▪ No matter you use the Windows Diskpart or AOMEI partassist.exe, you can initialize the disk to MBR format or GPT format as you want successfully. Besides initializing the disk, you can resize/move partition without data loss, rebuild MBR, etc.
Conclusion
If you wish to avoid using orders in diskpart to initialize disk, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant to do this work. And if you have some initialized disk wish to change the partition style, you can also convert to GPT/MBR with this powerful tool without losing any data, no matter the target disk is a system disk or data disk.
При установке операционной системы Windows на компьютер, некоторые пользователи сталкиваются с необходимостью конвертировать GPT в MBR. Например, в ситуации, когда во время установки системы появляется сообщение о невозможности установки системы на жесткий диск имеющий стиль разделов GPT. Одно из решений данной проблемы: преобразование таблицы разделов GPT в MBR.
Довольно долго на компьютерах использовалась главная загрузочная запись — MBR (Master Boot Record). Во время загрузки операционной системы BIOS выполняет инициализацию устройств компьютера, обращается к главной загрузочной записи, а затем передает управление операционной системе.
Современные жесткие диски по умолчанию имеют стиль разделов GPT, который пришел на смену MBR. G PT (GUID Partition Table) – The GUID partition table is part of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) interface, which is gradually replacing the outdated BIOS on computers. Read here how to find out the GPT or MBR disk installed on your computer.
Why is it necessary to convert a GPT disk to MBR
Over time, new technologies appear, so the usual BIOS has been replaced by UEFI, which implements the technology for initializing and transferring the boot of the Windows operating system in a different way. In particular, UEFI has Secure Boot.
Manufacturers of hard drives began to produce products with a GPT table that support the new BIOS interface. GPT disks have some differences from MBR disks.
Main differences between GPT and MBR disks for normal users:
The user can independently decide in what situations it would be preferable to use one or another hard disk layout option.
For example, you have a rather weak computer, so using 64-bit Windows instead of 32-bit does not make sense because you will not get any benefits, and in most cases, the x64 system will devour more system resources. To install or reinstall the operating system on an MBR disk, any bootable Windows USB flash drive will do. In the case of the GTP disk, there are some nuances due to which it will not be possible to boot from a USB flash drive and install the OS.
In this article, we are going to look at how to change the style of GPT partitions to MBR. In other situations, on the contrary, you will need to convert the MBR to GPT.
In the instructions, I will tell you how to change GPT to MBR using the Windows operating system: using the Disk Management snap-in and the command line. You can change GPT to MBR using system tools only with the loss of data on the disk, including on all logical partitions of this disk.
There are ways to convert HDD from GPT to MBR without data loss. For this, third-party software (Acronis Disk Director, Paragon Hard Disk Manager, AOMEI Patition Assistant, EaseUS Partition Master, MiniTool Partition Wizard, etc.) is used, which is launched from the bootable media.
Converting GTP to MBR using system tools becomes possible if there are no partitions with data on the disk. Therefore, you must first delete all partitions on the hard disk, and then proceed to convert the partition tables. All information will be lost.
How to convert GPT to MBR from Disk Management
Directly from the operating system, you can change GPT to MBR from the Disk Management snap-in. To do this, follow the steps below:
After the GPT to MBR conversion is completed, you will have a hard drive that supports Master Boot Record (MBR). Now you can install Windows of any bitness on this disk.
How to convert GPT to MBR when installing Windows on the command line
The user can change GPT to MBR directly during the installation of the Windows operating system. We will convert GPT to MBR when installing Windows 10. Similar steps are performed in Windows7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 operating systems.
During the installation of the operating system, an error message will appear in the partition selection window for installing Windows: “Windows cannot be installed on partition X of drive X. (Show details)”.
After clicking on the link, a window will open that says: “Windows cannot be installed to this drive. The selected drive has the GTP partition style.”
There are three options for solving the problem:
The command line will help us convert a disk from GPT to MBR.
In the Windows setup window, press the “Shift” + “F10” keys (on some laptops, it may be “Shift” + “Fn” + “F10”).
A console will open in which you need to execute serial commands. After entering each command, press the “Enter” key.
Enter the command to run the Diskpart disk utility:
The following command lists drives:
Then you need to select the disk number from the list of physical disks on the computer where you want to install Windows. Your computer may have multiple hard drives. When choosing a disk, be guided by the size of the disk.
select disk X (X is disk number)
Now you need to clear the disk. All disk partitions and data will be deleted.
Enter the command to convert the disk to MBR format:
After the disk conversion is completed, enter the command to exit the Diskpart utility:
Close the console window.
The disk has been converted to MBR, you can proceed with Windows installation.
In the operating system installation window, click on “Update” to select a disk. The new location “Unallocated space on disk 0” appears.
Click “Create” and then click the “Apply” button.
In the window that opens, you will see a message: “To ensure the correct operation of all its features, Windows may create additional partitions for system files.” Click on the “OK” button.
The operating system has created a special partition (“Reserved by the system”). Select another size (it is larger) to install the system, click on the “Next” button.
Windows installation starts. Read detailed articles about installing different versions of Windows.
Conclusions of the article
If necessary, the user can convert the GPT disk partition scheme to MBR using the system tools: the Disk Management snap-in and the command line, which can be used to convert the disk when installing the Windows operating system on the computer.
Let’s see how to convert MBR to GPT to change the style of hard disk partitions on the computer. Converting an MBR disk to GPT will allow you to switch to a modern standard, which has some advantages over the previous one.
Previously, during the boot of the Windows operating system, the BIOS used the master boot record – MBR (Master Boot Record), located on the computer’s hard disk. B IOS initializes the hardware, accesses the MBR, transfers control of the computer to the operating system.
At this point in time, the outdated BIOS has been replaced with the new UEFI interface. One of the UEFI components was the GPT (GUID Partition Table) partition table, located on the PC hard drive. Motherboard manufacturers are releasing hardware with the new UEFI bootloader, and accordingly, hard drive manufacturers are adjusting to the new GTP standard.
Thanks to UEFI, the computer will be more secure (Secure Boot function). When using GPT, performance increases, there are more chances for system recovery due to the fact that partition data is stored in different places on the disk, and not in one, as on a disk with an MBR partition table.
There are differences between GPT and MBR disks:
If necessary, the user can change the disk from MBR to GPT, or vice versa, convert GPT to MBR. How to make a GPT disk from MBR?
There are several ways to convert a disk from MBR to GPT: using system tools and using third-party software. Conversion to GPT by means of the system occurs with the loss of data on the hard disk. All partitions will be deleted from the disk, all information will be erased.
To convert to GPT without losing data, you need to use third-party programs (Paragon Hard Disk Manager, AOMEI Patition Assistant, Acronis Disk Director, MiniTool Partition Wizard, EaseUS Partition Master, etc.), which should be run from bootable media ( flash drive or CD/DVD).
In this article, we will analyze the methods using the tools of the Windows operating system: the Disk Management snap-in, using the command line during system installation, the easy method when installing Windows on a computer.
How to convert from MBR to GPT in Disk Management
This instruction is suitable if the computer has two hard disks, one of the disks needs to be converted to GPT. All actions take place in a running Windows operating system.
Do the following in sequence:
You will need to create a new volume in Disk Management to be ready for use. Right-click on the drive that has been converted, select “Create Simple Volume”. Follow the suggested steps in the wizard to create the volume.
After conversion, the hard disk has a GPT partition table. You can install a 64-bit Windows OS on the disk, or use it for other purposes.
How to convert from MBR to GPT via command line
During the installation of Windows on the computer, an error message appears in the window for selecting the disk for installing the operating system: “Windows cannot be installed on partition X of disk X. (Show details)”.
To view the message, open a window in which you will see an entry: “Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk contains an MBR partition table. On an EFI system, Windows can only be installed to a GPT disk.”
To solve the problem, you can use the system tool: command line. We convert HDD disk from MBR to GPT via command line.
In the Windows setup window, press the keyboard keys “Shift” + “F10” (on some laptop models it may be “Shift” + “Fn” + “F10”).
In a command prompt window, run the Diskpart utility, which is designed to work with disks. Enter the commands in sequence, after entering each command, press the “Enter” key.
In the console window, enter the command to display a list of all disks on the computer:
Now you need to select the disc number. If your computer has multiple hard drives, look at the size of the drive to tell the drives apart.
Enter a command to clear the contents of the disk. After executing the command, all data and partitions on the disk will be deleted.
Then enter the command to convert the disk to GPT partition style:
To exit the Diskpart application, enter the last command:
Close command prompt.
The hard disk has been converted from MBR to GPT style.
Refresh the Windows setup window. Unallocated space will appear in the disk selection window. Click on the “Next” button. Windows Setup automatically creates the necessary partitions, and then the operating system installation continues.
Convert MBR to GPT when installing Windows
Now let’s see how to convert MBR tables to GPT when installing Windows 10.
After an error about the impossibility of installing Windows on a disk with MBR partitions, do the following:
Delete all partitions from the hard disk. Select the section, and then click on the “Delete” button.
If your computer has another hard drive, do not touch it. Look at the disk number and the size of the partitions so as not to make a mistake when deleting partitions.
After deleting partitions, there will be unallocated space on the disk. Do nothing else, just click on the “Next” button.
Windows Setup will automatically convert the disk to GPT, create the necessary partitions, and continue installing the operating system on the computer.
The Windows operating system supports the conversion of hard disk partition tables from MBR to GPT by its own means: using the Disk Management snap-in, using the command line during system installation, or by simply deleting partitions during Windows installation.
Both MBR and GPT are partition styles for your storage devices, each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Converting a disk from MBR to GPT or vice versa is necessary if you want to use your disk in a more correct way based on the integrated features of partition formats.
4 ways to convert MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR without data loss
In this article, you can learn four ways to convert MBR to GPT or GPT to MBR. The first solution is the most recommended option. Even if you have little technical knowledge, you can convert to GPT without data loss.
How to overcome the 2TB MBR file system limit in Windows 11/10/8. 1/8/7
Whether you know MBR or GPT, you must have come across this situation. You have 4 TB of space on your drive, but you can only use 2 TB, and the remaining 2 TB seems to be wasted. Why does a 4TB hard drive only show 2TB? This is because your disk is MBR.
MBR only supports volume size up to 2TB and file size 4GB. Unlike an MBR disk, a GPT disk has no such restrictions. You can find out about the difference in this table.
Therefore, if you want to bypass these limitations on an MBR disk, or if you have vital files on your disk and are worried about data loss, you’d better convert MBR to GPT.
Tip 1. Convert MBR to GPT without data loss in Windows 11/10/8. 1/8/7
Partitioning tool – EaseUS Partition Master perfectly meets your requirement to change MBR to GPT without data loss. If you want to convert MBR to GPT or convert GPT to MBR, you can use this program to do it without deleting volumes on your disk.
Whether you are a computer novice or an expert, you can easily apply this tool right now to change MBR to GPT without losing any data in Windows 11/10/8/7. To convert GPT to MBR on the contrary, check out the specific guide.
Step 1. Download and run EaseUS Partition Master on your Windows computer.
Step 2. Right click on the MBR disk you want to convert and select “Convert to GPT” function.
Step 3. After that, find and click the “Perform 1 operation” button on the toolbar, then confirm with the “Apply” button to start the conversion. You need to restart your device for the changes to take effect.
Note: If your computer is having problems booting the OS, you need to first create a WinPE boot disk and then run EaseUS Partition Master from it to convert MBR to GPT.
Important: There is one thing you need to pay attention to. If the drive you want to convert is a system drive, please make sure the computer motherboard supports the boot mode of the target partition style. Remember that MBR supports BIOS and GPT supports UEFI.
Tip 2. Convert MBR to GPT with DiskPart Tool
You can convert MBR to GPT to CMD with Diskpart tool. But you need to know that Diskpart will delete all files and folders from your hard drive when you change the drive to GPT.
Therefore, we highly recommend that you back up your files in advance, and then perform data recovery after conversion. If you have a lot of files on your drive, it is recommended to back up your data using free backup software – EaseUS Todo Backup.
After backing up your files, follow the steps below to use Diskpart in CMD to convert MBR to GPT.
Step 1. Enter CMD in the search field. Right-click on “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator”. If CMD is not available, you can use PowerShell instead.
Step 2. Open Command Prompt, type DiskPart and press Enter.
Step 3. Enter the disk list and press Enter. ( Write down the disk number you want to convert to GPT)
Step 4. Type select disk X. (Replace X with the correct number of your hard disk)
Step 5. Now type clean and press Enter. This command will delete all files and partitions from your hard drive, so back up any important files beforehand.
Step 6. Type convert gpt and press Enter.
This method is not suitable for novice computer users. If you mistakenly cleared a partition using DiskPart, you can undo the DiskPart cleanup to recover your files.
How to install Windows 10 on a GPT partition?
Can’t install Windows 11/10 on a GPT partition? This page shows how easy it is to successfully install Windows 11/10 on a GPT partition.
Tip 3. Convert MBR to GPT disk using Disk Management
As with CMD, you also need to delete all partitions on your drive using Disk Management. Before converting a disk from MBR to GPT or from GPT to MBR, you need to back up the disk. If you want to recover a deleted partition, you can use a partition recovery program to get back your lost data and partition.
Step 1. Right-click “This PC”, select “Manage”, then go to “Disk Management”.
Step 3. When your disk becomes empty (shown as unallocated space), right click on the disk and select “Convert to GPT Disk”.
Tip 4. Convert MBR to GPT without Data Loss with MBR2GPT
MBR2GPT.exe is a built-in Windows tool used to convert a disk from MBR to GPT. The advantage of this tool is that it will not destroy the files on your disk during the conversion.
But it is not recommended as it is difficult to use and you may encounter various problems that many users have experienced. Also, this tool is only available on Windows 10 version 1730 and above.
Run MBR2GPT in WinPE to convert MBR to GPT CMD
Step 3. In the “Command Prompt”, type these commands in order and press Enter after each command
After executing these commands, your disk will be converted from MBR to GPT without data loss.
Run MBR2GPT in full Windows OS to convert MBR to GPT
The MBR2GP tool is designed to be run from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) “Command Prompt”, but it can also be run from the full Windows 10 operating system (OS) using the /allowFullOS option.
Step 1. Launch “Command Prompt” (Run as Administrator) in Windows 10.
Step 2. Type the command lines below and press Enter after each one.
Detailed information about MBR2GPT. EXE can be found in the relevant Microsoft documents.
How to enable UEFI mode after converting system boot disk to GPT
If you have converted your system disk (MBR) to GPT, you need to enable UEFI boot mode on your computer to make the OS bootable. Here are the steps:
Step 2: Find the “Boot” option menu and enable UEFI mode.
Step 3: Set the UEFI OS boot option at the top of the boot priority list.
Step 4. Save changes and exit BIOS, restart computer from GPT disk.
After that, wait patiently. Your computer will automatically boot from the GPT disk.
Summing up
After reading this guide, you will find that using EaseUS Partition Master is the easiest of the four ways to convert MBR to GPT without data loss. With this tool, you can convert MBR to GPT or convert GPT to MBR directly without deleting any partition.
If you prefer to use Disk Management or DiskPart to convert MBR to GPT, don’t forget to backup your disk beforehand. If you try to use MBR2GPT.exe, make sure your drive meets the requirements set by Microsoft, otherwise the conversion will not continue and an error will occur.
In this instruction, what to do if during a clean installation of Windows 10 or 8 (8.1) from a flash drive or disk on a computer or laptop, the program reports that installation to this disk is not possible, because the selected disk contains a table MBR partitions. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to a GPT disk. In theory, this can happen when installing Windows 7 during an EFI boot, but I haven’t come across it myself. At the end of the manual there is also a video where all the ways to fix the problem are clearly shown.
The text of the error tells us that (if something in the explanation is not clear, it’s okay, we’ll analyze it further) that you booted from the installation flash drive or disk in EFI mode (and not Legacy), however, on the current hard drive, on which you want to install the system, there is a partition table that does not correspond to this type of boot – MBR, not GPT (this may be because Windows 7 or XP was installed on this computer earlier, as well as when replacing the hard drive). Hence the error in the installer “Unable to install Windows to a partition on a disk.” See also: Installing Windows 10 from a flash drive. You may also encounter the following error (here is the solution): We were unable to create a new or find an existing partition when installing Windows 10
There are two ways to fix the problem and install Windows 10, 8 or Windows 7 on a computer or laptop:
In this manual, both options will be considered, however, in modern realities, I would recommend using the first of them (although disputes about which is better – GPT or MBR, or rather, about the uselessness of GPT, can be heard, however, already this is now becoming the standard partition structure for HDDs and SSDs).
Fix “On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disk” error by converting HDD or SSD to GPT
The first method involves using an EFI boot (and it has advantages and it is better to leave it) and simply converting the disk to GPT (more precisely, converting its partition structure) and then installing Windows 10 or Windows 8. This is the method I recommend, and it can be done in two ways.
Convert disk to GPT with data loss
If this method suits you, then just press the Shift + F10 keys in the Windows 10 or 8 setup program, as a result, a command prompt will open. For laptops, you may need to press the combination Shift + Fn + F10.
On the command line, enter the commands in order, pressing Enter after each (below is also a screenshot showing the execution of all commands, but some of the commands in it are optional):
After executing these commands, close the command prompt, in the partition selection window, click “Update”, and then select the unallocated space and continue with the installation (or you can use the “Create” item to partition the disk first), it should pass successfully (in some cases, if the drive does not appear in the list, you should restart the computer from a bootable USB flash drive or Windows disc again and repeat the installation process).
Update 2018: or you can simply delete all partitions from the disk without exception in the installer, select unallocated space and click “Next” – the disk will be automatically converted to GPT and the installation will continue.
How to convert disk from MBR to GPT without data loss
Note: if you are installing Windows 10, and the drive on which the installation is being installed is already a system drive (that is, it contains the previous Windows OS), you can use the built-in mbr2gpt.exe utility to convert to GPT without data loss, more How exactly to do this: Converting a disk from MBR to GPT using the built-in Windows 10 utility MBR2GPT. EXE.
The second way is in case there is data on the hard disk that you do not want to lose during system installation. In this case, you can use third-party programs, of which for this particular situation I recommend Minitool Partition Wizard Bootable, which is a bootable ISO with a free program for working with disks and partitions, which, among other things, can convert a disk to GPT without losing data.
After booting from the drive, choose to launch the program, and after launching it, do the following:
If in the second step you get an error message that the disk is a system drive and its conversion is not possible, then you can do the following to get around this:
That’s all. Now you can close the program, boot from the Windows installation drive and install, the error “Installation to this disk is not possible because the selected disk contains an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed on a GPT disk” will not appear, and the data will be safe.
Video instruction
The second way to get rid of the error On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to a GPT disk in the Windows 10 or 8 setup program – do not turn the disk into GPT, but turn the system into a non-EFI.
How to do it:
If in this case the computer refuses to boot, make sure that the Secure Boot function is disabled in your BIOS. It may also look in the settings as the choice of OS – Windows or “Non-Windows”, you need the second option. Read more: How to disable Secure Boot.
In my opinion, I took into account all possible options for fixing the described error, but if something continues to not work, ask – I will try to help with the installation.