Converting a GPT drive to MBR
In my haste to build a new system I installed two SSD drives, both 1TB, and a standard HD. For unknown reasons I had the SSDs partitioned to GPT instead of MBR and now that I'm trying to make the system dual boot, both using Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, using both SSDs as boot drives, I have issues fully using EasyBCD. So I'm trying to figure out a way to convert the identical (cloned) Windows 7 64 bit SSDs to MBR without having to go through the full install and updating of Windows 7 again. Any suggestions? From what I've seen in Windows I need to delete all partitions on the drive and then convert. Will Disk Director 12 allow me to move, save, or otherwise keep the data to restore without having to loose it all and reinstall all from scratch?
Steve:
I just did a test in a VM by creating a new disk, initialized it as GPT, created and formatted one partition, and copied a few files to it. Then using DD 12 I converted the GPT disk to MBR. The conversion worked but as outlined in the DD12 help file, the partition post-conversion was logical instead of primary. So then I used DD 12 to convert the logical partition to a primary partition. The end result was an MBR disk with all files intact and readable. So it worked.
However, this test does not cover your case where you have a bootable operating system on the disk(s). So doing the same with DD12 on your disks may or may not work. However, there is more than one way to skin a cat, so to speak. I recently successfully completed the opposite conversion (converting an MBR disk with a bootable operating system on the disk to GPT). I did this using only Windows tools, and depending on how your system currently boots, the inverse conversion may also work. So before suggesting a method, could you answer the following questions?
Four questions:
1. How many partitions are on each SSD?
2. Can you post a screenshot from Windows Disk Management of one of the disks (I am assuming that they are identical)?
3. Do you have a Windows 7 installation DVD?
4. Was your full-disk image made with Acronis True Image?
Mark,
1. Apparnetly two, 100MB and 953GB
2. See attached jpg
3. Yes, I ahve the OEM Windows 7 Pro 64 bit dvd
4. No, I used Windows Backup and Restore. I don't have True Image installed on that computer but I could. I have various versions up to 2017 and an unused license still. I have a USB 3 3TB portable drive I can backup to if needed
As you can see from the attached image I did attempt a DD12 conversion but the only folders remaining are $Recycle.bin and System Volume Information. That said I still have the intact C drive which is what I cloned from originally. I think I may need to use Samsung Magician to restore the attempted drive back to a clean drive.
Steve
Steve:
I think that the method I used may work for you also. One thing to watch out for, however. You apparently have a PC with UEFI since your picture shows EFI system partitions. In the following steps it is important that when you boot your PC into an installation DVD or a recovery disk, you must not boot in UEFI mode. If you do the installers will automatically choose GPT partitions and UEFI boot. Depending on your PC, look for a setting for BIOS mode or CSM (Compatibility Support Mode) and make sure to choose this mode. For example, if you boot from a DVD you may see two entries in the boot list; one with UEFI in the name and one without. Choose the one without. You may also need to disable Secure Boot to get this outcome; again depending on your motherboard and how its firmware works.
To convert your disks from GPT to MBR I would try the following procedure:
1. Use True Image to save an image of the C partition from your intact source disk to an external USB disk. It won't matter if the source partition is on an MBR or a GPT disk. While you're at it, create or download a copy of the Acronis bootable CD. In fact, you won't need to install TrueImage if you have or can download a copy of the bootable CD version and boot your PC from it to create the image. You will need the bootable CD to restore the image, however.
2. From a command prompt, use diskpart to clean one of the SSDs and to set up the desired partition structure. You can run diskpart from a command prompt within Windows 7 or by booting to the Windows 7 installation DVD or a Windows 7 repair CD. Use the following commands:
diskpart
list disk --(from the list, note the number of the SSD. For sake of an example, let's say it is disk 0)
select disk 0 (or whatever disk number it actually is. Be extremely careful to choose the correct disk because the next step will wipe out its contents)
clean
create partition primary size=100
format quick fs=ntfs label="System"
active
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs label="Windows 7"
exit
3. To be safe, I would now shut down the PC and disconnect all hard disks except the target SSD. Next boot the PC from your Windows 7 installation DVD and begin installing Windows. When the installer asks where to install to, choose the 953 GB partition on the SSD labeled "Windows 7". The idea here is to let the installer set up the MBR, the System Reserved partition, the Windows Recovery Environment, and to begin installing Windows. You will stop the installation at a convenient time during setup of the Windows partition.
4. The installer will reboot the PC at some point, maybe more than once. When it starts asking questions about location, time zone, or user accounts you can bail out of the installer. Just shut off the power. There is no need to let it complete the installation of Windows because you will restore your saved image over top of this incomplete installation.
5. Boot to the Acronis bootable CD and restore only the Windows partition to your SSD, overwriting the partial installation of Windows with the image made from your intact source disk. Adjust the size of the restored image to fill the remaining space on the SSD.
6. When finished, and with all hard disks disconnected except the SSD that you just restored to, reboot the PC into Windows on the SSD. You should end up with an MBR disk with MBR partitions configured exactly like your source disk.
The second SSD can be done in a similar fashion.
There are other ways to do this but they are more involved. I think this is the simplest way.
Thanks again Mark. I will have a go at this later this afternoon and post back with the results. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't work for me but at least I will have learned something new. This technology has changed a great deal since my first PC build years ago. It's getting hard to keep up with all the changes and new hardware.
Steve
Mark,
I didn't get to this the other day but now looking at mu BIOS setup and it appears that if I choose Windows 8/10 Features I can set the enable/disbale CSM option but not for Other OS. Not sure if this is a problem or not. Bleow that I have a Storage Boot Option Control which is currently set to Legacy only but has the choices of Disabled and UEFI Only. This is a bit confusing to me. I have several options that include UEFI or Legacy, among them Other PCI Device ROM Priority and Secure Boot State. Secure Boot State is set to disabled and Othe PCI is set to UEFI Only. Storage Boot Option Control is set to Legacy Only. These with the Windows 8/10 Features set to Other OS since it is Windows 7. Maybe I need to try Gigabyte support to clarify?
Steve
Steve:
Assuming that you want your Windows 7 installations to be the older BIOS boot with MBR disk partitions, and you currently have no interest in UEFI boot with GPT partitions, then you should set everything to Legacy or CSM (compatibility support mode). Since I'm not familiar with your motherboard, then checking with Gigabyte support for clarification is a good idea.
That was done and we agreed on the BIOS settings which I had changed already prior to calling. I have gone a sfar as setting up Win 7 on one of the SSD drives, did the full install and checked the drive to confirm it is indeed MBR, t is. Now I'll restore the saved image which should be interesting as I haven't done this before. Lucky I guess but now I'll see if my backups were a workable solution. I'll report back. Trust me, if it can go wrong it usually does for me.
Steve:
Sounds good. Just remember to restore ONLY the C partition. Do not restore anything else and do not restore Track 0/MBR. If the boot environment shows a different drive letter for the C partition just ignore that. Restore to the large partition on the SSD, no matter what letter is is called by in the boot environment.
Mark,
It did indeed work. And as I expected I ended up taking a longer path, I think, to the final restore. I thought I had made a Bootable Rescue Media DVD but that was for the Windows Restore procedure that I was thinking of using. So I had to make a new Bootable Rescue Media DVD first, then restore as you instructed and then use the Windows install DVD to repair so it would boot. That said, it did work and I've completed my first and only backup restore since getting Acronis years ago.
So now that this SSD is restored and is indeed MBR I'm guessing I should use Disk Director to clone the drive or should I use the Samsung Data Migration program that came with the drives? I think the cloned drive will need to be initalized afterward but that's easy enough. But first I think I need to install EasyBCD and iReboot first and then clone. Make sense?
I have to admit I could see making mistakes without having read, re-read, and reading again the procedure you laid out. The biggest deviance from your instructions was I allowed Windows to fully install and then checked the partition.
After this project is finished it will be time to try a Universal restore from my older Windows 7 Pro 64 to a newer Windows 10 Pro 64 system. The CPU, memory, and drives are getting too old to handle the many programs and hardware the observatory through at it. I may just rebuild the newer computer back to windows 7 Pro 64 and then try a Universal restore. Win 10 updates have a tendency to kill observatory systems and cause massive issues needing to be resolved after almost every update.
Thansk again for all the assistance.
Steve
Steve:
Very good! Although I am surprised that the recovered image did not boot and that you had to use the Windows Automatic Repair. Was the C partition on the SSD in the exact same location as the C partition on the HDD that you used to create the image? If not, that would explain what happened.
* Edit - on second thought, that shouldn't matter. The BCD on the System Reserved partition had the correct location of the Windows partition since you didn't move it when restoring the image. So I don't understand why this happened. /Edit*
As for doing the second SSD, you have several choices. Since you have Acronis True Image, my first choice would be to make an image of the first SSD, shut down the PC, disconnect SSD#1, connect SSD#2, boot from the Acronis recovery CD, and then restore the image to SSD#2. You should make an image of the entire disk and restore the entire disk this time.
I would not use DD12 to clone partitions; too many opportunities to mess up. True Image is the better product for this task. Once you have an image saved to external storage with True Image, you have multiple opportunities to try different restoration methods. If one doesn't work then you can try another method and you always have the saved image to fall back on.
Sound advice for sure. But wouldn't I need to make sure the second SSD is setup as MBR first? I'll have to look and see if I've already done that, I don't really remember.
Steve
You could, but if you restore an entire disk image to a disk, then you make an exact copy. If the source disk was MBR then the destination disk will be also.
Actually that drive is now MBR. I did that some days back and lost the data as I expected. Seems I used DD12 and converted it expecting to loose the data. As long as I had the one good drive I figured I could recover. I have installed and setup the dual boot configurations with EasyBCD and iReboot and now making full C drive backup, including both partitions.
Steve
I can happily say that the system is now cloned and dual booting correctly. Now I can start to cumstomize each side for it respect imaging systems. What a relief to get to this point.
Now can you point me to a person with great Universal Restore knowledge?
Thanks again for all the assists. I have a much better feeling for data restoring at this point and this has certainly been a special project.
Steve
Steve:
Congratulations! I'm glad that worked out for you. I don't have any experience with Universal Restore, but a video tutorial is here: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/tutorials/ATI2016/
If you run into any problems, post a question in the True Image 2017 forum where several MVPs hang out. I know a few of them have personal experience with Universal Restore.