Windows 10: more than one MBR

My OS disk boots from start on in XP. Still need that OS as my UMAX 2200 scanner is only fully supported by XP drivers.
Later on bought W7 ultimate and installed it as multiboot. EasyBCD does the trick. No problem. Runs both.
Had to upgrade to W10. As W10 tells me how to run my PC I installed Linux Mint as multiboot and got a GRUB on top. No problem. Still always works fine. Multiboot Mint on top and multiboot Windows as second choice.
Installed W10 'for you never know' and the MBR under XP accepted it as third Windows multiboot. Installed EASYBCD on W10 too to be in charge if needed.
for years I clould choose which of the 4 OS I want to work in as every OS does some things better than all others.

Had an crash in W10. Reinstalled it from an month old image backup and used the W7 dvd to get it fully active again. About half hour work. As Linux GRUB starts first it now shows me that I have 2 MBR's on my disk! The old one on the XP partition and a new one on the W10 partition of the same hard disk. Selecting one or the other works fine. Evenso I see some differences in the EasyBCD's where one is running in W7 (XP-mbr?) and the other in W10 (W10-mbr). Both start all 3 Windows versions evenso the names are not the same as once handwritten in EasyBCD.

So ........ do I need to get this fixed or just learn to live with it?

:)

 

Convert only one partition on the disk from MBR to GPT

Follow the steps listed here on using GPTgen. He also lists how to create and restore backups.

Converting MBR to GPT without deleting your partitions

 

clone MBR HD to bootable GPT partition?

Hi,

1. You cannot convert mbr to gpt without data loss. otherwise, you can follow directions here:

FROM WINDOWS RECOVERY CONSOLE:

To change a master boot record disk into a GUID partition table disk using a command line

• 
  Back up or move the data on the basic master boot record (MBR) disk you want to convert into a GUID partition table (GPT) disk.
  
• 
  Open an elevated command prompt (right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator) and type diskpart. If the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes, skip to step 6.
  
• 
  At the DISKPART prompt, type list disk. Make note of the disk number you want to convert.
  
• 
  At the DISKPART prompt, type select disk <disknumber>.
  
• 
  At the DISKPART prompt, type clean.
  

2. I'd suggest converting your vista drive to a virtual machine, load that up on your windows 10 system and use a program like virtualbox to run it.

 

Windows 10 & 7th gen Intel Core processors in UEFI mode running on MBR partitions

Hi John,

MBR partition is for older laptops but there's a workaround for it. It is to convert MBR to GPT. In this case, you can use a disk partition management. Try these steps:

• Click "Start Menu" > input "diskpart" in the search box and press "Enter" > Click "Yes" to open command prompt.
• Type "list disk" and press "Enter".
• Type "select disk n" and press "Enter". n is the number of the disk you want to convert. (take "Disk 1" for example)
• Input "clean" and press "Enter" to delete all partitions or volumes on the selected disk.
• Type "convert mbr" and press "Enter" to complete the conversion from GPT to MBR format.

Inform us for any updates regarding your issue.