If you are adding a brand new hard disk to your computer, the system may ask to initialize the disk. To initialize the disc you have to select the disk and the partition style that you want. There you can find two styles of partition MBR and GPT. What are MBR and GPT? What is the difference between MBR and GPT? Which is the better choice for your computer and Why? If you know the answer you can select the partition style to proceed. If you haven’t any idea about MBR and GPT, then this article is for you.
What is the difference between MBR and GPT?
If you add a brand new disk to your computer it doesn’t display in the File Explorer. You need to ass a drive letter or initialize the disk before using it. Initializing a disk will erase all contents on it and enables it to use on your Windows computer after formatting the disk. The hard disk can be divided into multiple chunks called partitions. Each partition has a partition style to understand how to access the data on the disk. The MBR is the short form of Master Boot Record and GPT is the short form of the GUID partition table. The Master Boot Record (MBR) style is used by 32-bit computers and removable drives. The new GUID partition table (GPT) is more robust that allows bigger volumes greater than 2TB.
MBR disks use the standard BIOS partition table. GPT disks use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). In GPT disks you can have more than four partitions on each disk. If you are using a hard disk with a capacity bigger than 2TB, you should choose the GUID partition table (GPT). Before selecting the GPT, remember if your computer’s motherboard supports UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware), then you can choose GPT. Before storing the data the partition should be formatted to NTFS or FAT files system.
MBR has initially introduced with the PC DOS 2.0 operating system in 1983. GPT was developed in the late 1990s. Compared with MBR, GPT is a new partitioning scheme, gradually replacing MBR.
How to initialize the new disk
You can initialize a new disk using Windows Disk management. Open the Disk management by typing Disk Management in the Windows search box. Create and format hard disk partitions appears, click on it to open it. In Disk Management, right-click the disk that you want to initialize and click Initialize Disk. In the Initialize Disk box, ensure that the correct disk is selected. Check the selected disk and the partition style. Then click OK to accept the default partition style. To add a new volume, right-click the unallocated space on the drive and select New simple volume. Select Next and specify the size of the volume and again click Next. Specify the drive letter that you want to assign to your new disk and click Next. Select the file system (NTFS) that you want to use, click Next and then click Finish.
