Should external drives partition types be listed as Master Boot Record or GUID Partition Table (GPT)?

[Penguin]

In Linux Mint's "Disks" utility, when viewing an external drive that has a single ext4 partition (formatted via Linux Mint), should the "Partitioning" field indicate "Master Boot Record" or "GUID Partition Table" (GPT)? If it matters, the system uses UEFI and the primary drive uses GPT.

[JerryF]

In Linux Mint's "Disks" utility, when viewing an external drive that has a single ext4 partition (formatted via Linux Mint), should the "Partitioning" field indicate "Master Boot Record" or "GUID Partition Table" (GPT)? If it matters, the system uses UEFI and the primary drive uses GPT.

Because you're using UEFI, the partition table needs to be GPT.

MBR is getting old and is limited with having 4 partitions, which 1 of those partitions can be an extended partition with several logical partitions in it. It gets very tricky and cumbersome.

[Penguin]

In Linux Mint's "Disks" utility, when viewing an external drive that has a single ext4 partition (formatted via Linux Mint), should the "Partitioning" field indicate "Master Boot Record" or "GUID Partition Table" (GPT)? If it matters, the system uses UEFI and the primary drive uses GPT.

Because you're using UEFI, the partition table needs to be GPT.

MBR is getting old and is limited with having 4 partitions, which 1 of those partitions can be an extended partition with several logical partitions in it. It gets very tricky and cumbersome.

Thanks Jerry. When I purchased the new external drive (Samsung T7 SSD), it came pre-formatted with a filesystem other than ext4 (I don't recall which filesystem). So I reformatted it in Linux Mint to ext4. It still shows MBR, however. How do I switch it to GPT? I'm okay reformatting, if required.

BTW, it probably doesn't matter, but to be complete, I use rEFInd, not GRUB, to manage the UEFI boot process.

[JerryF]

Thanks Jerry. When I purchased the new external drive (Samsung T7 SSD), it came pre-formatted with a filesystem other than ext4 (I don't recall which filesystem). So I reformatted it in Linux Mint to ext4. It still shows MBR, however. How do I switch it to GPT? I'm okay reformatting, if required.

BTW, it probably doesn't matter, but to be complete, I use rEFInd, not GRUB, to manage the UEFI boot process.

Sorry, I should have asked if you're going to use the Samsung as a boot drive. If it's going to be for storage and you don't need any more that 4 partitions, you can keep it as MBR.

If you want GPT, then do this:

• Open Gparted.
• In the drop-down menu on the right-hand side, select your Samsung drive. Be careful to select the correct drive.
• Make sure the partition is not mounted. If so, right-click on it and click Unmount.
• Click on the Device menu, then select Create Partition Table...
• In the drop-down menu, select gpt for the new partition table type.
• Click Apply
• This will leave the disk without a partition, so you need to create one.
• Click on Partition menu (or right-click) and select New.
• Depending on how you're going to use it, create as many partitions as you want by typing in New size for the size of partition(s). If you're going to use the whole disk as one, leave that number alone.
• You can type in the Partition name and/or Label for it, so when you attach the disk by USB, it will make sense to you.
• The File system will be up to you. If you're only going to use it for backup or storage in Linux, I would use EXT4. If you want it to be available and recognized also by Windows, use exFAT or NTFS. ***If it's for Timeshift backups, you'll need EXT4.
• Click the Edit menu (below those, there's a checkmark) then click Apply. It will ask you are you sure. Click Apply.

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[Lady Fitzgerald]

Thanks Jerry. When I purchased the new external drive (Samsung T7 SSD), it came pre-formatted with a filesystem other than ext4 (I don't recall which filesystem). So I reformatted it in Linux Mint to ext4. It still shows MBR, however. How do I switch it to GPT? I'm okay reformatting, if required.

BTW, it probably doesn't matter, but to be complete, I use rEFInd, not GRUB, to manage the UEFI boot process.

Sorry, I should have asked if you're going to use the Samsung as a boot drive. If it's going to be for storage and you don't need any more that 4 partitions, you can keep it as MBR.

If you want GPT, then do this:...

If you do choose to do this, make sure you back up any data you might have already put on it since this will wipe everything off the drive.