Skip to main content

Cloning smaller MBR drive to larger GPT drive

Thread needs solution

Hi, all-

I purchased a 4Tb Western Digital HD to replace my 2Tb Toshiba drive that was almost full on my Win 7 PC. I read on Amazon that WD offers a great utility, Acronis, that will clone the drive for me. I discovered over the weekend that it's not that easy.

I was looking at this older post: https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2017-forum/stop-converting-disks-gpt-please

One of the suggestions was to try Macrium Reflect 7, which I installed & ran and it did a good job of cloning the drive, but only MBR to MBR and now I have a 4Tb drive that I need to convert to GPT.

I read a thread (I thought on this forum, but I can't find it now) that recommended a few products that would do what I need, including MiniTool, Aoemi, maybe Easeus. I've looked at all those products and am not impressed.

So my question is: If I upgrade to the full version of Acronis True Image, will I be able to clone my 2Tb MBR drive to my new 4Tb GPT drive

If so, what steps do I need to follow? At this point I've read so many different posts, saying different things, that I don't feel comfortable just diving into this using Acronis (or any other software for that matter.)

I don't have a problem with running the clone operation again (for the third time), but I would like to get it right this time.

Oh, two more questions:

1. After the first clone, at some point (after a reboot, I think), my OLD 2Tb Toshiba HD went from 64Gb of free space to almost 500Gb of free space! (Now I don't really need my new drive!) Is this normal? does the clone operation free up space on the source drive? Defrag, maybe?

2. After both my clones, I checked the number of folders & files on both drives and they didn't match up. Shouldn't they be the same?

Thanks for any assistance you can provide!

Best,

Chris

0 Users found this helpful

Chris, welcome to these public User Forums.

Please see KB  2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products - which applies to any copies of ATI provided by third-parties such as WD with their products.

With ATI, the process of migrating a drive from Legacy / MBR to UEFI / GPT is controlled by the method by which the OS and / or the Acronis Rescue Media is booted.

If you perform a clone on a system which is legacy then the destination disk will also be legacy.

If you perform a clone on a system which is UEFI, then the destination disk will be GPT.

The Acronis Rescue Media is capable of booting in both Legacy and UEFI modes and the above applies.  See  KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

ATI can only perform this type of migration from Legacy to UEFI by either cloning, or by doing a Backup & Recovery - it does not have any tools to perform an in-place migration from MBR to GPT.

See webpage:  Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk with Three Tools for a third-party tool that could do the above.

Thanks for your reply, I was hoping you would chime in as I've seen in other threads here.

So, if I upgrade to the full version of Acronis, which I can do for $30, I'll be able to achieve my goal by doing another clone after booting from an Acronis Bootable Media? That sounds easy enough to do and I'll have a nice backup utility to...boot!

Thanks again!

Chris

Chris, take a backup as a precaution before cloning or any attempt to change partition scheme's or disk layouts. A backup is a safety net and a chance to recover / restore in case of any unexpected outcome. 

The bios settings and behavior ate usually the trickiest part of a disk conversion and can throw people off.

Chris, your current WD version of ATI may be able to do what you need if used in the correct way, i.e. create the bootable media and test that you are able to boot from this in UEFI mode, if so, then assuming you are able to connect both the old MBR disk and your new (to be GPT) disk, you should be able to clone from the MBR to GPT.

Note: it is recommended to install the new disk internally in your computer and connect the old disk as a second drive via USB or other means.

I would still recommend having a full disk backup before starting as this is your safety net in case of anything going wrong.

If the WD version of ATI does not allow you to do what is needed, then consider a 30-day trial of ATI 2019 and keep your eyes open for an announcement from Acronis that they are opening Beta testing for their new ATI 2020 version, which is due very soon.

Chris,

As I understand your OP you are looking to convert a current Win 7 install on an MBR formatted disk to a GPT partition style disk without any data loss.  True Image is not the right tool to use in this instance.  A third party partition manager such as those you mentioned are designed for such a task and are appropriate tools to use.

True Image conversions requires that the computer is able to boot using either UEFI or Legacy BIOS methods, not sure if your PC can and given your post I do not think that changing from Legacy boot to UEFI is what you desire either.   Just know that True Image when converting MBR to UEFI needs to do so on a computer that can boot using UEFI and that such a conversion will result in the computer booting UEFI and not Legacy Bios method.

 

My PC can boot to both UEFI & Legacy, in fact it was set to boot to either when I checked it the first time.

Is than any reason I wouldn't want to boot UEFI? Isn't that the only way to take advantage of my 4Tb drive?

As for a backup, I don't have anything to backup to, but I do have my data backed up, so worst case I would spend a weekend reinstalling my PC.

No one has addressed these two questions:

1. After the first clone, at some point (after a reboot, I think), my OLD 2Tb Toshiba HD went from 64Gb of free space to almost 500Gb of free space! (Now I don't really need my new drive!) Is this normal? does the clone operation free up space on the source drive? Defrag, maybe?

2. After both my clones, I checked the number of folders & files on both drives and they didn't match up. Shouldn't they be the same?

Any thoughts, anyone?

Best, 

Chris

Chris Bledsoe wrote:

My PC can boot to both UEFI & Legacy, in fact it was set to boot to either when I checked it the first time.

Is than any reason I wouldn't want to boot UEFI? Isn't that the only way to take advantage of my 4Tb drive?

There is no reason not to boot your PC via UEFI if it is capable.  Just wanting to make sure you have all the facts and understand what conversion of MBR format scheme to GPT scheme means and what your result will be.  There are those whom cannot use or do not want to use UEFI.

GPT format scheme is what is necessary for you to utilize all of your 4TB disk without partitioning.  GPT is more flexible and handles filesystems better as well.

Your free space change could be the result of temp files not being included in the clone as it sounds like you tried the clone while booted into Windows.

The only way to make your conversion is as Steve suggested by using Acronis Rescue Media.

I cannot explain the difference in folder/file changes. 

Chris, please see webpage: MBR2GPT which can also be used (with care!).  There is a video on the same page that may be helpful for you.

Hi, Steve- I was looking at MBR2GPT before I posted!

The Microsoft website implied it might work with Win 7, but I couldn't find a place to download the EXE. As it happens I just ordered a PC with Windows 10, so I'll have it within a week or so.

In the meantime, I think I'll try booting using Rescue Media and run the clone operation again.

Hi, all-

Following your suggestions (and THANKS for those), I was able to clone my drive using Acronis. (And, yes, when I ran Macrium back in June and it freed up 500Gb of disk space, I put this project on hold until I used up the 500Gb.)

FWIW, l didn't gain any space from running Acronis, like I did with Macrium. Update: Looking at my drives again I see I did gain about 250Gb on my OLD hard drive. This didn't happen for a short time after I booted up my PC after the cloning.

Now I'm trying to confirm the cloning worked properly. I don't see a log anywhere. Am I just not looking in the right spot? (I ran Acronis V19.0.0.33)

One thing I've noticed between the old & new hard drives is a difference in Files & Folders.:

                                      New Drive                         Old Drive

C:\                                 Fewer Files & Folders       More F&F

C:\Program Files           Fewer Files & Folders       More F&F

C:\Program Files (x86)  Fewer Files & Folders       More F&F

C:\Users                        Fewer Files & Folders       More F&F

Comparing my data folders, the numbers match between the old & new hard drive, so I'm thinking I'm probably OK.

I'm just wondering if you have any suggestions for validating the cloning.

Best,

Chris

 

There isn't much to go by to really identify the differences.  There is a log associated with each task in Windows, but it really just helps identify failures from success.  The rescue media has a temporary log too, but it goes away once you close out of it (the rescue media is your boot CD/DVD, usb flash drive, or can be the temporary Acronis Linux environment that the computer boots into if you start a clone in Windows... if it cannot perform a live clone).  Essentially though, if the clone says it was successful, it was.

The difference in file size is likely the omission of certain .tmp files, page file and the reset of system protection (stored in system volume information where restore points would be - these are lost).  

If you really want to compare differences, you can mount the backup file as a volume.  Then run something like treesize free to check folder size and run a second instance of treesize free on the live OS and compare.  Look for major file/folder size differences, which usually are in system volume information, recycle bin, etc that won't impact your cloned drive.