UEFI with MBR partition table?

I want to convert the current GPT partition table to MBR on my laptop which uses UEFI.

Is it safe it use UEFI with MBR partition table?

Maybe I am misunderstanding about UEFI/GPT things?

Solution 1:

is it safe UEFI with MBR partition table?

You're not asking about safety, but about support. Yes, EFI firmware has no trouble with an MBR partition table, which it can cope with just as it can cope with an EFI partition table. You just need to make sure that you have an EFI System Partition.

Your problem is Windows. Microsoft erroneously conflates has a GPT partitioned disc with bootstraps in the EFI way. So your laptop with a modern EFI partition table and modern EFI firmware has been installed and is bootstrapping Windows in the modern EFI way. Change to an MBR style partition table, and Windows will expect to be bootstrapping in the old PC98 way. You'd have to switch on the Compatibility Support Module option in your firmware, if it has it, and either reinstall Windows or individually modify the Microsoft Boot Manager, the system BCD store, the system volume's VBR, and the MBR bootstrap program.

All that fuss, and a massive step backwards, just for a rather dodgy "boot logo changer" and a "Microsoft Toolkit" that's almost certainly not Microsoft's? (Some quick searches turned up various things purporting to be these. Perhaps the most appalling was the one that gave step by step instructions to the marks for turning off security, patching their system files to turn off warnings of danger, and trusting a new root certificate; roping them in with the promise of a different picture at bootstrap time. But the bogus "anti-virus" company falsely telling people that Microsoft wrote AutoKMS so they shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about it came a close second.) I suggest not.