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My computer has 2 hard disks. The first one is for the win 10 os. The second one is for data storage. They were both gpt style drives. Since it was a very old system, I decided to get it formated . I gave the system to the service centre to format the first HDD and install Windows 10 there .I asked them to not even touch the second drive. However after I received the system from them , I noticed that the uefi option was not enabled in the bios settings. Naturally, I saw that the windows installation was done on a legacy bios environment. I also noticed that the second HDD was still in gpt style.

What surprised me,was the fact that though the second HDD was still in gpt style while the first one was in mbr style (to support legacy bios), I could still access and modify files in the second HDD.

My question is: I had previously known that gpt drives are not supported on mbr system. So, why was I able to access the secondary HDD(which was in gpt while the system was now a legacy bios system)?

overkill
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  • I think as storage it's fine but can't boot. – user324747 May 30 '20 at 18:22
  • I have to find my question on here – user324747 May 30 '20 at 18:22
  • I got a 3TB HDD. Formatted as GPT. When trying to install Windows it gave a stupid error like cannnot continue "The Drive is GPT" and I was like I know that it's GPT telling me it's GPT is not an error. I formatted as MBR and it would install but only recognized 2TB. The correct error should have been "You are trying to install to a GPT disk on a system that (probably) doesn't support booting from GPT" – user324747 May 30 '20 at 18:24
  • I installed the latest Fedora at the time, Fedora 20. Used GPT and installed Linux. df -h shown the file system as 3TB (2.8 something). I updated it and can't get in, not sure if that's related or not. As of now it boots the old HDD and the drive shows up in diskmgmt.msc but I obviously can't see the Linux file system on it there. Ironic, I was thinking about that this morning. – user324747 May 30 '20 at 18:27
  • https://superuser.com/questions/900317/install-server-2008-to-3tb-drive-on-vostro-260 – user324747 May 30 '20 at 18:28
  • Please see this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-and-gpt-faq – patkim May 30 '20 at 18:46
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    Windows, since either XP or Vista, definitely supports *reading* GPT disks, but whether they can **boot** from them depends on whether your firmware is BIOS or UEFI. – Mokubai May 30 '20 at 18:50

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