Clone MBR OS drive to GPT?

GoogalyMoogaly · 1 Feb 2023 at 08:32

Does anyone know if this is possible?
I'm using the free version of Acronis that you get with Crucial drives at the minute but don't know if there are any free alternatives that would do a better job?

Do I need to convert the disk to GPT before cloning? What's the best way to do that?

It's not a size issue it's more a UEFI issue and I'd like to keep my Windows 11 options open.

Thanks.

StephenJ · 1 Feb 2023 at 13:15

I would back up the drive and then convert to GPT before you try and clone it.

Cyber-Mav · 1 Feb 2023 at 14:57

I did this and it didnt boot. Needed to use a usb boot disk to run some commands like bcdboot and make new boot sector then it worked

GoogalyMoogaly · 2 Feb 2023 at 00:35

Well, for anyone interested, I managed it.

First I cloned my boot SSD (SATA) onto an identical SSD as a backup.
I then found that if you do the whole restart to command prompt thing (you an do it in Windows too apparently) you can use a windows tool (assuming you have a recent enough version of Windows 10) called "mbr2gpt". That did it in seconds and the drive booted fine after a restart.

I then cloned it to my 500GB NVMe m.2 SSD (using Acronis as most SSD manufacturers seem to give it away) and that was gpt too.

Cyber-Mav · 2 Feb 2023 at 16:21

I went gpt to mbr so other way around

throwaway4372 · 2 Feb 2023 at 16:27

When I researched Windows 11 system requirements I bookmarked these links as the solution for MBR conversion to GPT, there were wrong ways to do it, these are the instructions that work (I realise OP has done it already, this is for other people):

How to convert MBR to GPT drive to switch BIOS to UEFI on Windows 10

A PC with UEFI is more secure and faster than the legacy one using BIOS, and here's how to switch.

www.windowscentral.com

How to Convert the System from Legacy BIOS mode to UEFI mode after...

Instructions to covert a system originally configured in legacy BIOS mode during Windows* installation to UEFI mode and the partition style from MBR to GPT without data loss.

www.intel.com

MBR2GPT

Use MBR2GPT.EXE to convert a disk from the Master Boot Record (MBR) to the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition style without modifying or deleting data on the disk.

learn.microsoft.com

GoogalyMoogaly · 2 Feb 2023 at 18:04

throwaway4372 said:
When I researched Windows 11 system requirements I bookmarked these links as the solution for MBR conversion to GPT, there were wrong ways to do it, these are the instructions that work (I realise OP has done it already, this is for other people):

How to convert MBR to GPT drive to switch BIOS to UEFI on Windows 10

A PC with UEFI is more secure and faster than the legacy one using BIOS, and here's how to switch.

www.windowscentral.com

How to Convert the System from Legacy BIOS mode to UEFI mode after...

Instructions to covert a system originally configured in legacy BIOS mode during Windows* installation to UEFI mode and the partition style from MBR to GPT without data loss.

www.intel.com

MBR2GPT

Use MBR2GPT.EXE to convert a disk from the Master Boot Record (MBR) to the GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition style without modifying or deleting data on the disk.

learn.microsoft.com

Yeah, I think the first link was the website I found and followed.

mrk · 9 Feb 2023 at 10:31

I did this ages ago before switching to Win 11 and using UEFI. First I ran a command line entry to convert MBR to GPT in-place. Windows carried on as normal. Then I just cloned to my new SSD with Samsung Data Migration at the time, but Macrium reflect Free will do the exact same thing if you don't have a Samsung drive.