chocomonsters Posted May 25, 2007 Share Posted May 25, 2007 I am using 4 HDs in Mac Pro. XP, Vista (x32), and OSX will be on separate physical HD. I understand that XP and Vista can be installed on MBR without Boot camp and few Mac specific drivers can be loaded afterwards. My question is that what is advantage of using GPT versus MBR for Vista and XP HD? I am planning to use Vista Bootpro for booting. I am mainly using Mac Pro for windows applications. Actually, I am using Nvidia 8800 video card under XP and Vista so I can not actually boot OSX unless I swap out video card to 7300 GT. I have left "virgin" OSX HD alone in Bay 4 as I want to be able to do firmware upgrade without problem in future. So what is potential pros and cons for just using MBR for XP, Vista, and data HD and GPT for Vista/XP HD? Your inputs will be appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteEagle Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 i dont really understand what you wanna know, but vista and xp cant handle gpt... if you dont know what it is, so read @ www.wikipedia.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superhai Posted May 29, 2007 Share Posted May 29, 2007 xp64 and vista 64 can use gpt discs, but they can only boot from mbr discs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chocomonsters Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 Perhaps, I should rephrase my question. What is advantage of using boot camp if one is installing XP/Vista on separate HD? Boot camp partitions 200mb of protected GPT partition in addition to partition for windows. Is it needed in anyway? Since my initial post, I have installed both XP and Vista on their own separate HD without using Boot Camp. Since EFI firmware update, Mac Pro can be installed with Windows directly. I simply let windows update find updated drivers from internet (some are more recent version than drivers included in Boot Camp). I used Boot Camp CD for few missing drivers that Windows update couldn't install. So far I haven't found any ill effect or instability. I am using Vista BootPro for choosing which OS to boot from. So far all benchmarks have been same before reinstalling without Boot Camp for both XP and Vista. However, boot time has shortened significantly. If any problem could arise from not having GPT partition in each HD, I would rather find out now than later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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