Windows 10: Transferring from BIOS/MBR system to UEFI/GPT

This may be clear as mud, but I'm going to give it a shot.


The SSD on my Dell 3847 computer failed, so I connected it as a secondary drive to another, older Dell (660) and was able to copy a lot of files off of it. That older computer has an HDD; I used it while waiting for Sandisk to send a replacement SSD.

I first cloned the HDD in the 660 to my new SSD, but when I put it back in the newer computer, it couldn't be read; it said there was no boot file (if I remember correctly). I then created a system image of the older drive and tried to install it in the newer one with my new SSD, but that failed because the older one has BIOS with an MBR formatted HDD, and the newer one didn't like that; it has UEFI and wants to format to GPT. I then set about trying to convert the older one to GPT so a system image could be read on the new SSD, but found that, if I could do that at all, it would required wiping that drive, which is precisely what I didn't want to do. And I found that apparently the motherboard of the older computer can't work with UEFI anyway. The two Dell computers aren't all that different in their specs, so I never expected there to be a difficulty.


I read in a few places that EFI is backward compatible with BIOS, but I got an error message saying that was the problem (when I tried to install the system image). Other online sources said they are incompatible in either direction. Since I can't get my old 660 to use UEFI, I'm stuck. It seems pretty clear to me that there is no way to clone (or create a system image of) the older HDD and have it work in the newer one. I went ahead and started from scratch with the newer one, using a Windows recovery drive, but I hate to have to set up all my programs. Am I right? Is there no other way?

:)

 

GPT vs MBR for SSD OS Disk ? (win7 install)

You can use UEFI with MBR and GPT.

Yes.

 

Convert Windows 10 MBR to GPT (UEFI)?

In reviewing my Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) system I noted that the Secure Boot Status is showing as "unsupported". Investigating further, it appears either the GPT partition for booting using UEFI (is Secure Boot) has become corrupt or my installation was
never installed for Secure Boot. My Windows 10 install is an auto-upgrade from a Windows 8.1 install.

Is there a way to convert the MBR to GPT without doing a fresh install? I do have a USB recovery drive built at a point I believe I had indications Windows was booting from a GPT (UEFI) partition. In fact, the USB recovery drive shows as being a UEFI drive.

Any suggestions will be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

How can I change from MBR to GPT and vice versa from GPT to MBR in Windows 10 Home

Usually, MBR and BIOS (MBR + BIOS), and GPT and UEFI (GPT + UEFI) go hand in hand. That's to say, if a Windows computer that uses UEFI, it will only support GPT. if your motherboard supports BIOS, go for MBR.

As for converting MBR to GPT and vice versa, you can enter Disk Management, and right click the disk to choose "Convert to GPT Disk" or "Convert to MBR Disk" to finish the conversion. BUT this method only supports convert an empty
disk (no volumes) to MBR or GPT. Deleting volumes/partitions on the disk will cause data loss. In order to convert disk between MBR and GPT without data loss, you need to first back up everything important, or turn to a 3rd party

free MBR to GPT converter, which allows you to directly convert a disk containing volumes/partitions to MBR or GPT.