Am thinking about upgrading to Win11- have 2 questions:
1- must I change file system on all 3 of my drives or just on my boot drive from MBR to GPT status?
2- I installing Win11 & finding I do not like it- can I change my GPT drive(s) back to MBR without any problem?
Thanks in advance for your response.
1. Only the boot drive needs to be GPT.
2. Why would you need to go back to MBR? But if you really wanted to, make a backup image of the disk before you convert it to GPT. Then to go back, you would restore your backup image.
Not without modifying the Windows 11 installation media. Stock Windows 11 requires UEFI booting which Microsoft likes to have a GPT disk to boot from in UEFI.
Windows 11 specs, features, and computer requirements
System firmware UEFI, Secure Boot capable. Check here for information on how your PC might be able to meet this requirement.
@ljdarby,
Please edit your profile with ALL your hardware specs. It will help us to help you
System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums
If your computer meets the hardware requirements, you can convert your Win 10 drive from Legacy-MBR to UEFI-GPT and then upgrade to Win 11.
Convert Windows 10 from Legacy BIOS to UEFI without Data Loss
As things can go wrong, we recommend that you create a drive image backup from the current Win 10 drive and save it on another drive.
Upgrades can be performed in a supported or unsupported fashion.
Run the Microsoft health check: https://aka.ms/GetPCHealthCheckApp
Post images or share links into this thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive.
The health check will check many parameters:
a) Secure boot
b) TPM 2.0
c) CPU
d) RAM
e) Disk size
f) Processor cores
If there are many unsupported parameters and one or more cannot be easily modified to become a supported upgrade then plan to make an unsupported upgrade.
There is a default 10 day go back period.
This can be modified to 60 days.
Make backup images and save the images to another disk drive or the cloud.
Restoring an image as needed allows an unlimited testing period.
MBR can be changed to GPT and GPT can be changed to MBR but once you're using GPT there is no advantage to move to MBR.
MBR allows only 4 primary partitions whereas GPT allows 128 primary partitions.
MBR does not have secure boot options.
GPT has secure boot options providing greater levels of security.
GPT has benchmark faster boot times.
Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware | Windows 11 Forum
Bypass Windows 11 TPM 2.0 and CPU System Requirements Tutorial | Windows 11 Forum
See these Microsoft links:
Update on Windows 11 minimum system requirements and the PC Health Check app | Windows Insider Blog
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...9-ef0a331518f1
That is an erroneous statement. GPT v. MBR has nothing to do with Secure Boot. For example, the standard USB flash drive installation media created by Microsoft's own Media Creation Tool is MBR with a single FAT32 partition marked as active, which can 100% be booted with Secure Boot enabled.
See these Microsoft links:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...f-843abef64fadCode:To change these settings, you will need to switch the PC boot mode from one enabled as “Legacy” BIOS (also known as “CSM” Mode) to UEFI/BIOS (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). In some cases, there are options to enable both UEFI and Legacy/CSM. If so, you will need to choose for UEFI to be the first or only option. If you are unsure how to make any necessary changes to enable the UEFI/BIOS, we recommend that you check your PC manufacturer’s support information on their website. Here are a few links to information from some PC manufacturers to help get you started:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...em-secure-bootCode:Secure boot requirements In order to support Secure boot, you must provide the following. Hardware requirement Details UEFI Version 2.3.1 Errata C variables Variables must be set to SecureBoot=1 and SetupMode=0 with a signature database (EFI_IMAGE_SECURITY_DATABASE) necessary to boot the machine securely pre-provisioned, and including a PK that is set in a valid KEK database. For more information, search for the System.Fundamentals.Firmware.UEFISecureBoot system requirements in PDF download of the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program Specifications and Policies. UEFI v2.3.1 Section 27 The platform must expose an interface that adheres to the profile of UEFI v2.3.1 Section 27. UEFI signature database The platform must come provisioned with the correct keys in the UEFI Signature database (db) to allow Windows to boot. It must also support secure authenticated updates to the databases. Storage of secure variables must be isolated from the running operating system such that they cannot be modified without detection.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...rom=windows-11
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...iew=windows-11
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