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I want to create a MBR partition table with GParted. In the confirmation window I can choose between various types of partition table. Default is msdos. Is it the same as MBR partition table?

I'm running GParted off Ubuntu LiveCD.

2 Answers 2

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Yes msdos is the same as MBR so use it.

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The MBR partitioning scheme is the same regardless of OS (and should work provided your drive is < 2.2TB). FDISK as well as the other equivalents will do this for you.

If you want the partition to be "MSDOS" compatible you will need to select a FAT partition type - The highest version will depend on the version of MSDos.

For MS-DOS 2.x type 1 (FAT 12) For MS-DOS 3.0 or greater type 6 (FAT 16)

Note that versions of MS-Dos prior to 3.3 you can only have a single partition, and before MS-DOS 4.0 the largest partition was 32 Megs. If you are wanting a "Windows Compatible" type, select FAT 32 (type b). This is probably what gparted uses.

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    I think you misunderstood the question. When creating a new partition table with GParted, it will ask you for the table type. Default is MS-DOS. OP wants to know if it's an alias to MBR partition table. (it is)
    – gronostaj
    Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 0:33
  • See part of my answer that I Bolded.
    – davidgo
    Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 2:55
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    @davidgo: You misunderstood the question. It is not about format of individual partitions (file system) but about format of the partition table. It is usually the old "MBR" format from the time of PC DOS / MS-DOS versus the new one GPT (GUID Partition Table) which is part of UEFI. Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 7:46
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    @davidgo exactly like pabouk says. Here's the screenshot.
    – gronostaj
    Commented Jan 13, 2014 at 7:57
  • @gronostaj Besides, you can have a fully Windows-compatible disk with NTFS partitions, no need of FAT. As for gparted, it does not use any kind of filesystem by default: after having created the MBR, it waits for the user to choose size and filesystem type for each partition. Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 6:01

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