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Restore img on dissimilar hardware is no problem, but when source is GPT and destination are MBR problems arise

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Well I think that GPT/MBR are the problem im facing... Because when I restore the GPT image on some older hardware I get this error:

After operation completion operating systems will not boot from the destination disk in bios

Is there any way to fix this?

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Peter, the error message is saying that the target disk drive will be converted from GPT to MBR after the restore is performed but that the OS on the source was UEFI which is not supported as a boot option.

The message is normally given when booting from the Acronis Rescue Media in a different BIOS mode than used by the Windows OS being restored.

There is no easy method of converting from UEFI/GPT back to Legacy/MBR and this scenario is not covered in the ATI 2019 User Guide section on disk migration.

If your older hardware supports UEFI BIOS for booting then you should use this mode to boot the Rescue Media and restore in that mode to preserve the OS GPT and UEFI mode of operation.

Steve Smith wrote:

Peter, the error message is saying that the target disk drive will be converted from GPT to MBR after the restore is performed but that the OS on the source was UEFI which is not supported as a boot option.

The message is normally given when booting from the Acronis Rescue Media in a different BIOS mode than used by the Windows OS being restored.

There is no easy method of converting from UEFI/GPT back to Legacy/MBR and this scenario is not covered in the ATI 2019 User Guide section on disk migration.

If your older hardware supports UEFI BIOS for booting then you should use this mode to boot the Rescue Media and restore in that mode to preserve the OS GPT and UEFI mode of operation.

 

 

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Hi Steve.

Thanks for clarifying. The older hardware does not support UEFI.

I know how to convert a GPT to MBR using Diskpart but I dont know if that would work here or if the drive will keep its integrity after conversion? 

 

Thanks for clarifying. The older hardware does not support UEFI.

I know how to convert a GPT to MBR using Diskpart but I dont know if that would work here or if the drive will keep its integrity after conversion? 

Peter, my understanding of using Diskpart to convert a drive from GPT to MBR is that this is destructive, i.e. all contents will be lost, thus defeating the restore by ATI.

See webpage:  How to Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk - which confirms this understanding.

See also: How to Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk? from Easeus but note the condition given:

EaseUS Partition Master can directly convert GPT disk to MBR disk without any data loss (hard disk with system installed is not supported).

The obvious suggestion here would be to try booting the Acronis Rescue media on the older hardware where UEFI is not supported, and then do the restore of the GPT / OS disk from there. This should preserve or make the target drive MBR and restore the OS partition to it, but I suspect that you would then need the Windows Install DVD or USB media to boot into the Windows Recovery options and do a Startup Repair to re-establish the Boot Configuration Data store needed by the restored OS.  You may also need Acronis Universal Restore tool to prepare the restored OS to work with the different hardware that it will find on the older hardware platform.

 

Steve Smith wrote:

Thanks for clarifying. The older hardware does not support UEFI.

I know how to convert a GPT to MBR using Diskpart but I dont know if that would work here or if the drive will keep its integrity after conversion? 

Peter, my understanding of using Diskpart to convert a drive from GPT to MBR is that this is destructive, i.e. all contents will be lost, thus defeating the restore by ATI.

See webpage:  How to Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk - which confirms this understanding.

See also: How to Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk? from Easeus but note the condition given:

EaseUS Partition Master can directly convert GPT disk to MBR disk without any data loss (hard disk with system installed is not supported).

The obvious suggestion here would be to try booting the Acronis Rescue media on the older hardware where UEFI is not supported, and then do the restore of the GPT / OS disk from there. This should preserve or make the target drive MBR and restore the OS partition to it, but I suspect that you would then need the Windows Install DVD or USB media to boot into the Windows Recovery options and do a Startup Repair to re-establish the Boot Configuration Data store needed by the restored OS.  You may also need Acronis Universal Restore tool to prepare the restored OS to work with the different hardware that it will find on the older hardware platform.

Thanks Steve... At some point its just easier to build up the image from scratch. I would love to only maintain 1 golden image for all our machines but it seems like UEFI is stopping me from this.