Mix/Matching MBR & GPT drives?

ByronicHero

Member
Apr 18, 2012
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According to this MS post,

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn640535(v=vs.85).aspx

In order to mix and match MBR and GPT drives, the boot drive must use GPT.

However, at time of writing, I had set my 2ndary drive to GPT and my boot drive is still MBR with no apparent issues. I would like to avoid deleting all my data on the GPT drive if it isn't necessary so if any one can help clarify this situation for me it would be most appreciated.
 

mv2devnull

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2010
1,519
154
106
According to this MS post,

In order to mix and match MBR and GPT drives, the boot drive must use GPT.
Where does it say so?

Do you mean this:
Systems that support UEFI require that boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. Other hard disks can be either MBR or GPT.
The beef in that is "systems that support UEFI", which is poor wording. A more accurate statement is:

The MS Windows cannot be booted in UEFI mode unless the boot partition is on a GPT disk.

In other words, the selected boot procedure (BIOS or UEFI) does set demands on the boot disk's partition table (when using Windows) but you can use any (supported) partition scheme(s) on the data drive(s).