SDD went from GPT to MBR. I think...

[Danimal Manimal]

I recently decided to upgrade my PC's RAM by adding two 8GB sticks to the present two 8GB sticks. I have done this before on other PCs with minimal issues. This time gave me more trouble, with the two new sticks never being recognized no matter what steps I took. The only settings I've ever edited in my BIOS are the RAM setting, enabling DOCP to get my RAM to it's advertised speed. I thought, maybe setting those back to default would help, putting all the RAM sticks at the same settings makes sense to me, and since the MoBo ran fine prior on it's default settings, this seemed harmless to me. Famous last words I guess.

 

Upon booting up after setting things to default, my boot priority menu was blank, along with the boot menu. The BIOS recognized both my SSD and my CD ROM as storage devices, but not as bootable options. After some troubleshooting of my own, I ended up enabling the Launch CSM option, and it worked. Everything booted up normal, besides the new RAM, but that's no longer the priority. However, with some more research, I came to find that my SDD and CD ROM are now categorized as MBR, and not GPT.

 

From what I can tell. MBR is a older partition style, and GPT is now the norm, supporting more storage, drives, and is more stable; but I also never looked at my partition style before. Who would unless you need to? From what I've read online, without using third party software, changing partition style requires you to delete the partition, which I'm pretty sure erases your data.

 

So how did my drives become MBR, by accident, and without erasing any data? Did my drives convert? Is there a chance that all of my drives were MBR to begin with? The PC was built in 2020, so it's not old. How did my boot priority list get wiped just from putting BIOS settings back to default? Is it possible I have been on CSM Legacy the whole time? Maybe the BIOS saw MBR drives on the initial boot up and changed that setting on it's own. Is that a thing?

 

If my drives did convert from GPT to MBR somehow without losing any data, should I risk going back to GPT?

My Motherboard is an Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus. Thanks for any responses.

[Eigenvektor]

15 minutes ago, Danimal Manimal said:

If my drives did convert from GPT to MBR somehow without losing any data, should I risk going back to GPT?

Most likely they were MBR already. It's extremely unlikely this just happened on its own.

 

You don't need third party tools though:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-a-gpt-disk-into-an-mbr-disk

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-an-mbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk

[Danimal Manimal]

15 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Most likely they were MBR already. It's extremely unlikely this just happened on its own.

 

You don't need third party tools though:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-a-gpt-disk-into-an-mbr-disk

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/disk-management/change-an-mbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk

I actually came across those articles in my research. They both involve deleting the partition, and as far as I know, if you delete the partition, you lose all your data. I'm no partition expert though. The third party software comment I made was about converting the drive, and keeping all your partitions / data. The Windows based procedures seem to require you to wipe the drive.

 

Back to the matter at hand.

 

Assuming that my drives were MBR the whole time, and my BIOS must have jumped to CSM upon the initial boot, then I don't even see a reason to convert. Everything ran fine prior to be setting it back to UEFI by mistake. Right? There would be no reason to convert unless I specifically needed a GPT drive; which as far as I can tell, I don't.

[Eigenvektor]

8 minutes ago, Danimal Manimal said:

I actually came across those articles in my research. They both involve deleting the partition, and as far as I know, if you delete the partition, you lose all your data.

You lose your data if you do not back it up beforehand, correct. Which you should do in any case even if third-party software can do an in-place conversion. Because a conversion always carries the risk of destroying the data on the drive (e.g. due to bugs).

 

8 minutes ago, Danimal Manimal said:

Assuming that my drives were MBR the whole time, and my BIOS must have jumped to CSM upon the initial boot, then I don't even see a reason to convert. Everything ran fine prior to be setting it back to UEFI by mistake. Right? There would be no reason to convert unless I specifically needed a GPT drive; which as far as I can tell, I don't.

If everything is working as it should, then there's no reason to convert, correct.