Why should you convert external hard drive to GPT disk?
The hard drive can be divided into MBR and GPT. The MBR is the abbreviation of master
boot record, which starts the standard BIOS partition table, supports up to 2TB
volume capacity. It only supports up to 4 primary partitions, which means if you
want to create more partition for storing different files when it already has 4
primary partitions, you have to convert one primary partition to extended partition.
While, the GPT, GUID partition table disk, uses unified extensible firmware
interface (UEFI), supports disk more than 2TB, and you can have more than four
primary partitions on GPT disk.
Why should you convert external hard drive to GPT? Many users want to have more
partitions to store different files. Thus, they want to convert their external hard
drive to GPT so that they can create partition more flexible. There is another
situation that users have to convert the external hard drive to GPT. Sometimes,
users may find that their 3TB or 4TB external hard drive only showed 2TB, users only
convert it into GPT disk to make full use of the external hard drive.
Convert external hard drive to GPT with Disk Management
Figure out why you need convert external hard drive to GPT, you need to know how to
do it. The Windows OS has built-in tool named Windows Disk
Management. You can use it to convert your external hard drive to GPT.
Plug in the empty external hard drive and make sure it can be detected by the
computer. Open theDisk Management. Right click the external hard
drive, select “Convert to GPT Disk” and follow the hints to convert
external hard drive to GPT.
Note: To change a master boot record disk into GUID partition table
disk with the Windows Disk Management, you need back up or move the data on the
external hard drive first. Because it can only convert an empty MBR disk to GPT,
otherwise, you’re unable to convert disk to GPT using Windows
tool.
Convert external hard drive to GPT without destroying any data by using AOMEI
Partition Assistant
AOMEI Partition Assistant
is a good software that can convert MBR to GPT without destroying any data. Even
there are many data on the external hard drive, you can convert it to GPT, which
breaks out the limitation of Windows built-in tool. You can follow the steps below.
Step1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant, you will see
its main interface. Right click the removable disk and select “Convert to
GPT Disk”.
Step2. Then, it will pop out a window to ask whether you want to
convert MBR to GPT disk, click OK.
Step3. It will back to the main interface, and the disk 2 has
already been marked as GPT. Then, click Apply at the toolbar to
submit the operation.
After converting the external hard drive to GPT, you can also use this software to
manage your hard drive, such as create partition, resize partition, delete
partition, format partition, etc. You can even use it to move OS to new hard
drive. If you only need the basic functions, you can download its free edition. The good news is
that the AOMEI Partition Assistant also sutable for Windows server users. If you are
a Windows Server users, the AOMEI Partition Assistant Server
is sutable for you.