Windows 10: Restoring a Win10 system partition from backup image on MBR disk to GPT disk

I have an older Dell Latitude E7450 laptop on Windows 10 customized to my needs. It has a regular Bios and the disk is MBR. There are 3 partitions:

C: system primary

Extended partition:
D: apps (logical drive)

E: data (logical drive)

I have acquired another E7450 w. Win10 to hold in reserve in case the current one fails, that I intend to keep in sync so that in any emergency I can switch immediately.

It has a UEFI Bios and the disk is GPT.

C: system primary

D: free primary

E: free primary

What I want to do is replicate the disk of the old on the disk in new:

1. 
   Restore the old system partition of the old laptop from backup over the one on the new;
   
   
2. 
   Copy the content of D: and E: on the old onto the free partitions on the new.
   

What I dk is the MBR/GPT conversion. Step 1 restores a MBR partition to a GPT disk-- what is the effect of that? Will the restored partition boot? Do I have to convert the disk to GPT after the restore for it to boot? Is the conversion done from within Windows,, which requires the restored partition to boot before the conversion?

Any advice on how to do this will be appreciated.

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:)

 

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

 

convert MBR to GPT disk

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 465 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 7633 MB 0 B

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 465 GB 0 B

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 549 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 Primary 151 GB 550 MB
Partition 3 Primary 152 GB 152 GB
Partition 4 Primary 161 GB 304 GB

DISKPART> select partition 2

Partition 2 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> clean

Virtual Disk Service error:
Clean is not allowed on the disk containing the current boot,

system, pagefile, crashdump or hibernation volume.

I am having above highlighted error while converting MBR to GPT disk .

please get me the solution.

 

Converting a MBR disk to a GPT disk

When installing Windows I was asked which drive to install it on and selected the 3TB drive, whereupon it stated it couldn't install it on there as it had a MBR and needed a GPT drive.

-> OK, with such a large disk you must use the GPT partitioning scheme.

I then tried converting it to a GPT drive using diskpart etc through the Cmd prompt with Admin privileges. But when I got to selecting the disk it told me I couldn't select it because it had a Paging
File.

-> I am not surprised.

Went online to get MS Technician to help me and he said go into the BIOS, press Ctrl-Shift-Delete keys and then Diskpart etc to convert the disk to GPT.

-> What he probably said is that you need to set the "BIOS boot mode" to UEFI.

The Windows installation process gives you the option of partitioning and formatting your disk. It probably lets you choose the partitioning scheme too, MBR or GPT. I do not know for sure since I do not
have a disk > 2 TBytes that I could test. If not then you can do this:

• Boot the machine with your installation medium.
• Select Repair Mode, then the Command Prompt.
• Use diskpart.exe to partition & format the disk.
• Install Windows.

You might ask yourself if you really want a 3 TByte System Partition. I would go for a 100 GByte System partition and a 2.9 TByte data partition.