Windows 10: Partition confusion, MBR / GPT, Windows installation caused problem

Hi, Windows 10 Home 64 bit Clean install, 2 Samsung 850 EVO's, one will be main drive the other for backup purposes. The screen shot below was taken from Macrium Reflect backup / restore software. Both SSD's seem to be functioning well, load very fast, no operation issues that I know of. My question is concerning how the Disk's are labeled / formatted / partitioned. Is this normal or did I do something go wrong? I have never formatted / partitioned a disc. I have installed new disc's, loaded the operating system and all was well. Windows 10 apparently has something new going on I an not familiar with. The Seagate FreeAgent will be replaced by one of the new SSD's. Please advise. While I am not "tech savvy" as most of you are I do "OK". Please communicate in laymens terms so I can better understand.

Thank You

:)

 

How to restore or convert an mbr system image to gpt format

Hi,

Are you talking about TWO instances of Win 10 running, or are you wanting to overwrite the Win 10 GPT partition with the MBR Image ?...

Loading the MBR image onto the GPT partition might work without any issues, but there may be some... The GPT installation probably uses a EFI partition and "Windows Boot Manager" to boot... the MBR installation does not...

If it does not, a Startup Repair may resolve the problem...

I have had mixed success switching between MBR and GPT installations of Win 10...

Depending on how you created the System Image, it may refuse to load onto a GPT drive... The Windows imaging method is pretty finicky about stuff like that...

 

Windows 10 Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC

I have tried to re-install it, but and error message comes up saying "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systes, WIndows can only be installed to GPT disks." This is the error message for any
partition, and am confused as to which I choose. Or how to overcome this problem

 

As far as functionality once booted into Windows. They are both OK. It just depends on how you install Windows. In the installation Media, from the boot menu, there are two options to install Windows: 1- Install Windows with GPT disk partition scheme, 2 - Install Windows with legacy MBR Partition scheme. So if you left the disk unallocated at the time of install and pick one of the two, Windows will initalize the disk accordingly. In addtition, the BIOS must be set either to UEFI or MBR.

BIOS set to UEFI then you must select # 1 in the screen shot
BIOS Set to MBR then you must select # 2

More info about the differences between the 2's:
GUID Partition Table - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The two options are shown below with my MB Boot Menu. Yours might look different,

 

In most cases, it will be fine with either MBR or GPT. It is only in situation where you need to install Windows on a Mac, or when you need to have a partition bigger than 2TB, that you need to use GPT, or convert MBR to GPT. Also, for the newer model of computer that uses UEFI, it will only support GPT.

 

Thanks, When I installed I used an ISO file downloaded from Microsoft and burned to DVD. During the install process I was asked to choose where to install. There were several options but Windows said I could not install on any of the options. Never experiencing that, and not knowing what to do I deleted all of them and then only one choice was available and Windows accepted it. That happened on both SSD's. F12 is supposed to allow me to select my boot device but it does not work. Non of the F keys work during boot, only Delete to get me into the Bios which is where I select my boot order. I can I get a screen shot like you have?