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Windows 10 MBR vs GPT issues lead to clone/backup questions

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Attempted upgrade from Win 10 1709 to 1803.

Failed, refused to boot. Went from fixmbr to bootrec /fixboot to diskpart - no luck.

By accident (due to unresponsive bios) disabled fastboot and pc booted to 1709.

Made USB install with media creation tool, wanting to do over the top refreshinstall of 1803 keeping settings, data, and apps.

Result:

"windows cannot be installed because this pc has an unsupported disk layout for uefi firmware"

Make DVD install disk

"windows cannot be installed because this pc has an unsupported disk layout for uefi firmware"

Penny drops. 1TB SSD is MBR. Windows is demanding GPT.

Purchase Acronis True Image 2018 thinking to clone OS to bigger GPT SSD.

Read that this is easier restoring to new GPT disk from backup.

Acronis wants to backup all hard drives. Does not appear to be a way to backup just OS drive? (I have over 8TB of data.)

Whereas Clone MBR to GPT only works for non-OS drives?

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Hi Alan,

Does the "Disks and Partitions" option when creating a new backup not do what you want? 

When you create a new backup, change the source from "Entire PC" to "Disks and Partitions". You should be able to choose a single drive to back up. 

See this support page for more information: https://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2018/index.html#…

If your recovery USB drive for True Image 2018 is booted using UEFI, then it should be able to restore a disk/partition backup from an MBR disk to a GPT disk. 

Let me know how it goes!

Yes! I hadn't found where to change that. Newb territory. Will get a new 2TB SSD tomorrow and try to "restore" backup to that.

Alan, just a quick note here - the way you boot any removable media, be that the Windows 10 #1803 update media or the Acronis Rescue Media, this will dictate how the drive is expected to be formatted / the partition method.

If you boot the media as UEFI then GPT is expected but if you boot in Legacy mode, MBR is expected.

If your intent here is to upgrade Windows 10 from 1709 to 1803, then the best method is to do this from the Windows 10 1709 desktop, assuming that you are able to reach this, then launch the setup.exe file from your 1803 update media to do an in-place upgrade install.

Ditto Steve on this!

Yup! Given how important this is, I probably should have made it more clear in my original post...

In risposta a di truwrikodrorow…

Like Steve, I am of the opinion that the easiest way to upgrade Windows is from within Windows itself.

On the initial problem of the creation of the backup task, the 'whole PC" default is disconcerting - not sure how it could be improved but it takes some getting used to.

Ian

Ian,

As a regular home user of True Image, I personally think that the "Whole PC" default is the best idea, simply because it offers a one-click solution to what most home users want to do; just have a backup of their entire system (which, more often than not, comprises a single, not particularly large, storage device - most laptops nowadays ship with a 250 gig SSD as standard, don't they?). 

Perhaps a better option might be to not select "Whole PC" by default, and then prompt the user for their choice (like it does for the backup destination)?

Neil, I tend to never use the 'Entire PC' option as I prefer the additional level of control of being able to choose which particular disks & partitions will be included in any backups.  This was because my systems tended to have multiple drives and recovery was always a lot simpler when having just one disk per backup task.  Perhaps I have been fortunate that I have never suffered from a loss of multiple drives in any system at the same time, but having UPS protection helps prevent that too.

'Entire PC' can be the simplest option for any users with only a single drive computer, but the downside is that it can also include any external connected drives.  I would prefer that this option was restricted to only internal drives, which would make for better management.