When we install Windows on a hard disk drive or solid state drive, the drive must be formatted properly for the installation to finish. The newer versions of Windows fail to install on older types of the partitions. This is why the first thing that you should check for in a hard disk drive is what type of partition table structures it has.
Advantage of GPT over MBR
There are two main types of partitions tables – MBR and GPT. The MBR partition tables are older type and stands for master boot record. MBR has been in use since the earlier versions of Windows from 90s. But the GPT (GUID partition table) is the newer partition table type. All the newer operating systems use GPT as it has many advanatges over the older MBR. For example, we cannot use MBR for disks having a total storage capacity of more than 2 TB. In those large storage drives, we have to use GPT partitions. Furthermore, Windows 11 cannot be installed on older MBR style partitions.
Show Disk Partition Style
We can find whether our old hard disk drives, solid state drives or any other storage media has GPT or MBR style partitioning using a freeware tool called Show Disk Partition Style. It is a portable tool designed by Sordum and can instantly show a list of all the available storage media along with the GPT or MBR or unknown partition tables.
In its small window it displays a list of volumes with data such as device name, disk number, partition type (MBR or GPT) and partition designation letters. The program uses the same limits as set by the Windows operating system, which means that it supports a GPT partitioned disk with as much as 256 TB storage capacity.
Conclusion
Show Disk Partition Style is useful in quickly determining whether a storage media is partitioned using the GPT or MBR style. This information is necessary to have before we install an operating system on a drive. But if the tool also contained a feature to convert existing MBR partitions into GPT, then it would be much more useful.
You can download Show Disk Partition Style from https://www.sordum.org/9307/show-disk-partition-style-v1-1/.