GPT Hard Disk Drives for HP Business Desktops
3 
Figure 1. GPT partition table scheme 
Figure 2 on the following page shows a comparison of the MBR and GPT layouts. 
Protective MBR 
Primary GPT Header 
Entries 1 thru 4 
Entries 5 – 128 
Partition 1 
Partition 2 
Remaining Partitions 
Entries 1 thru 4 
Entries 5 – 128 
Secondary GPT Header 
Protects MBR-based 
disk utilities  
from overwriting 
 GPT drives 
Defines usable 
blocks on the disk 
List of drive 
partition entries 
(up to 128) 
Drive partitions  
(up to 128) 
Secondary/backup 
GPT header and  
partition entries 
LBA = 512 bytes 
NOTE: LBA -34 refers to the 34
th
 addressable block 
address counted backwards from the last LBA on  
the drive. 
Primary GPT 
Secondary GPT 
LBA 0 
LBA 1 
LBA 2 
LBA 3 
LBA -34 
LBA 34 
LBA -33 
LBA -2 
LBA -1 








