MBR to GPT for Windows 11

[stevehaynes777@gmail.com]

Like many others, I'm now looking at an upgrade path to Windows 11 so I need to change my boot drive from MBR to GPT.

I have successfully changed my non-boot disks from MBR to GPT, easy enough with disk manager convert to gpt option and then just copy all files back.

My concern now is the bootable MBR disk - If I backup using paragon and then use diskpart to "clean" and "convert gpt" how do I then create a
partition which will boot the C: drive contents restored by paragon (I'm assuming here that only C: gets restored, I don't want to restore the other MBR? volumes?

Any advice appreciated, I'm not confident with this stuff...

Thanks

Steve

[Max Power]

Hello and welcome to the forums!
You can't just convert bootable MBR drive to GPT -- different boot files are used. It'd be easier to reinstall Windows from scratch.
If really needed, you can check if the following workaround will help:
1 Back up C: and other partitions (if any) from that MBR disk
2 Erase the disk and convert to GPT
3 Install Windows (same version as was installed) to GPT disk
4 Restore C: and other partitions so that they will erase clean C: partitions of newly-installed Windows.

[stevehaynes777@gmail.com]

Many Thanks for the reply, This is a real pain for me as a I have a few PCs in this situation.

Step 4 threw me a little since I'm not quite sure what's in the other partitions and if they affect MBR/GPT : Restore C: and other partitions so that they will erase clean C: partitions of newly-installed Windows.

I can see that I want to restore C:, but the others? - Just double checking here because of my own lack of clarity on this, apologies.

Thanks
Steve

[carrausse@gmail.com]

I think you don't need Partition Manager just use mbr2gpt tool from Microsoft : https://www.windowscentral.com/how-c...efi-windows-10

This worked well for me,

However in my case I ended up with unallocated space on the right side of my disk (see screenshot) and I can't seem to find a way to merge the unallocated space together with C:

Screenshot_9.jpg

Anyone knows if Partition Manager can help merge [1] and [4]?

[stevehaynes777@gmail.com]

Thanks for the mbr2gpt tip, worked ok for me. I ended up with a new E: system reserved drive, but I just took away the drive letter assignment in disk manager.

I'm still not clear on whether I can now restore an old paragon backup from when it was MBR... but at least the conversion is now done.

Thanks!


Steve