Master Boot Record (MBR) and GUID Partition Table (GPT) are two partitioning schemes used for SSDs and HDDs. MBR, an older standard, works well with legacy BIOS firmware on older computers, whereas GPT, which is a more recent development, is associated with UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) and offers advantages for modern systems.

They both have pros and cons, but GPT is generally preferred for newer computers running Windows 10 or 11, as it supports more partitions and larger storage capacities. That makes it ideal for multi-boot setups or systems with numerous partitions. If you ever find the need to convert your SSD from MBR to GPT and are wondering how to do it, then here's a step-by-step guide detailing how to do it.

Converting an MBR drive to GPT with Windows Disk Management tool

A built-in Windows tool that works very well

Disk Management is a built-in Windows disk utility that's very useful to manage the drives on your PC. It's the same tool we recommend to those who want to partition an SSD as it's very easy to use and works very well. You can also use this tool as a Windows Administrator to convert the disk partition style from MBR to GPT. It's a fairly simple process that only takes a couple of minutes, so let's take a look.

1. Press Windows + R keys, and type diskmgmt.msc in the dialog box to open the Windows Disk Management tool.
2. Right-click on the partition or volume of the MBR drive you want to convert and select Delete volume.
3. Click Yes when prompted to delete the volume.
4. Right-click on the MBR disk and select Convert to GPT disk.

Converting an MBR drive to GPT with Command Prompt/Diskpart

Easily convert with a few commands

Alternatively, you can also use Windows Command Prompt to convert an MBR disk to GPT. This method is also fairly simple and only takes a few minutes to get it done.

1. Open Command Prompt as an administrator.
2. Type diskpart to open Diskpart.
3. Type list disk to check the list of all the existing disks on your computer. This will also highlight GPT disks with a *.
4. Select the MBR disk by typing select disk followed by the number you want to choose. We'll type select disk 1 in this case.
5. Type clean to delete all the partitions and volumes of the selected MBR disk.
6. Type convert GPT to convert the selected MBR disk to GPT partition style.

Convert an MBR disk to GPT in a few simple steps

And that's how easy it is to convert an MBR disk to GPT on Windows using the built-in tools. Both Disk Management as well as the Diskpart prompt in Command Prompt work very well to convert an MBR disk to GPT. You can, however, use third-party tools like EaseUS Partition Master to convert them as well. These tools also offer other storage/partition-related tools that let you create, delete, resize, extend, and more in one place, making them a great option for those who don't want to deal with multiple tools.