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mbenson2 Author

Level 1

13 points

Convert Windows 10 Partition to GPT?

I have succeeded in installing the latest version of Windows 10 onto the 1 TB hard drive of my Mac mini 2012 with Boot Camp, reserving my 1 TB SSD for macOS High Sierra (10.3.3). However, I was unable to install Windows while the hard disk had a GUID partition map, instead having to convert it to MBR before installing Windows 10. I understand there are several advantages to using the GUID partition map, and so I was wondering if there is any way to convert my Windows 10 disk to GUID.

This is the output of diskutil list in Terminal:

/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.1 TB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_APFS Container disk2 1.1 TB disk0s2

/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: FDisk_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk1

1: Windows_NTFS System Reserved 575.7 MB disk1s1

2: Windows_NTFS BOOTCAMP 999.6 GB disk1s2

/dev/disk2 (synthesized):

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: APFS Container Scheme - +1.1 TB disk2

Physical Store disk0s2

1: APFS Volume Macintosh HD 847.5 GB disk2s1

2: APFS Volume Preboot 24.7 MB disk2s2

3: APFS Volume Recovery 507.2 MB disk2s3

4: APFS Volume VM 3.2 GB disk2s4

Mac mini, macOS High Sierra (10.13.3), Late 2012

Posted on Mar 11, 2018 3:50 PM

Best reply

Loner T

Level 9

59,471 points

Posted on Mar 11, 2018 4:30 PM

mbenson2 wrote:

Thank you for the quick response. I have configured the drive as a fusion drive in the past, but I tried again after installing High Sierra, and Boot Camp ran into trouble partitioning the drive. Besides, I like being able to use APFS.

HS has quite a few Bootcamp-related issues. I do not recommend HS, if you also need Windows. Sierra is much more stable. APFS also creates other disk space challenges.

mbenson2 wrote:

If I reinstall Windows, will I be able to use GPT if I do something differently during the installation?

Not during the installation, but you can before the installation. If you really want APFS, and Windows, manual partitioning is the better approach. For example, half the SSD as APFS, the second half+HDD as Fusion, and a manual partition using diskutil cs resizeStack for Windows from the Fusion drive.

mbenson2 wrote:

Also, the main reason I asked this question is because my computer is slow to switch between operating systems, and I was wondering if there is any way to speed up this process. Thanks.

EFI booting is in general faster, but a preUEFI Mac does not fully support it. Late 2013 and later models are UEFI-compliant. You can install Windows on the SSD part, if you manually partition. There are more esoteric schemes, but macOS upgrades/updates do not handle non-standard partitioning well.

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Convert Windows 10 Partition to GPT?

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