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Zachary-Cavanell's avatar
Zachary-Cavanell
Bronze Contributor
Apr 05, 2017

Shifting from BIOS to UEFI with the Windows 10 Creators Update MBR2GPT disk conversion tool

Comprehensive yet quick video overview that explains how you can safely and non-destructively convert a Windows 10 machine from legacy BIOS to UEFI disk partitioning; and how you can automate the conversion as part of your in-place upgrade process from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

 

52 Replies

  • Error while validating Disk

    C:\WINDOWS\system32>mbr2gpt /allowFullOS /validate
    MBR2GPT: Attempting to validate disk 0
    MBR2GPT: Retrieving layout of disk
    MBR2GPT: Validating layout, disk sector size is: 512 bytes
    Disk layout validation failed for disk 0

    • Mike Terrill's avatar
      Mike Terrill
      MVP

      Check your setupact.log & setuperr.log files in %Windir%\Panther. There should be some verbose information in one of those logs.

      -Mike

    • Valdas Valdas's avatar
      Valdas Valdas
      Copper Contributor
      hi, if mbr disk have 4 partitions it will fail, i deleted one partition then it worked.
      • Amro Hendawi's avatar
        Amro Hendawi
        Copper Contributor
        worked for me like magic !!! deleted one partition using diskpart tool in cmd prompt and voila !! thank u
  • ali mh's avatar
    ali mh
    Copper Contributor

    hi 

    i tried to convert from mbr to gpt using the cmd 

    my widows builed is 1703 

    when i enterd the command to validate the disk 

    this is the message that i got

    can you please help me to know what is wrong

    my laptop allow for uefi

     

    C:\Windows\system32>mbr2gpt /validate /disk:0 /allowfullos
    MBR2GPT: Attempting to validate disk 0
    MBR2GPT: Retrieving layout of disk
    MBR2GPT: Validating layout, disk sector size is: 512 bytes
    Disk layout validation failed for disk 0

     

    thanks in advanced

    • William A. Paternina M.'s avatar
      William A. Paternina M.
      Copper Contributor
      I Had the same error while trying to convert my mbr hard disk to gpt.
      what I did for getting success was the following:
      1.- checking my partitions in computer management, I saw my two partitions (system reserved and OS ) were primary partitions, but data partition Or D: (as I use to call it) was in logical partition state.
      2.- I installed Minitool Partition Wizard and converted logical partition to primary.
      3.- Run into windows Enviroment the mbr2gpt /convert /disk:"number of the disk" /allowFullOS and the... IT WORKED!

      Hope you Found this helpful.
  • I get this error when trying to do the /validate
    ValidateLayout: Wrong boot partition count, expected 1 but found 0.

    Any idea why that is?
    • ftrout's avatar
      ftrout
      Brass Contributor
      Just from the look of the error, it sounds like it cannot find a boot partition. How are you running the command?
      • Lasse Gaardsholt's avatar
        Lasse Gaardsholt
        Copper Contributor
        mbr2gpt /disk:1 /validate

        I have tried from both WinPe and within Windows.

        This is the full transcript for the command prompt.

        C:\Windows\system32>mbr2gpt /disk:1 /validate /allowfullos /logs:c:\temp
        MBR2GPT: Attempting to validate disk 1
        MBR2GPT: Retrieving layout of disk
        MBR2GPT: Validating layout, disk sector size is: 512 bytes
        Disk layout validation failed for disk 1
    • Dhruv Joshi's avatar
      Dhruv Joshi
      Copper Contributor
      Yes! Because that tool is only available for that version and after versions.
    • Deleted's avatar
      Deleted
      MBR works with disks up to 2 TB in size, but it can’t handle disks with more than 2 TB of space. MBR also only supports up to four primary partitions — if you want more, you have to make one of your primary partitions an “extended partition” and create logical partitions inside it. This is a silly little hack and shouldn’t be necessary.
      GPT stands for GUID Partition Table. It’s a new standard that’s gradually replacing MBR. It’s associated with UEFI — UEFI replaces the clunky old BIOS with something more modern, and GPT replaces the clunky old MBR partitioning system with something more modern. It’s called GUID Partition Table because every partition on your drive has a “globally unique identifier,” or GUID — a random string so long that every GPT partition on earth likely has its own unique identifier.

      This system doesn’t have MBR’s limits. Drives can be much, much larger and size limits will depend on the operating system and its file systems. GPT allows for a nearly unlimited amount of partitions, and the limit here will be your operating system — Windows allows up to 128 partitions on a GPT drive, and you don’t have to create an extended partition.

      On an MBR disk, the partitioning and boot data is stored in one place. If this data is overwritten or corrupted, you’re in trouble. In contrast, GPT stores multiple copies of this data across the disk, so it’s much more robust and can recover if the data is corrupted. GPT also stores cyclic redundancy check (CRC) values to check that its data is intact — if the data is corrupted, GPT can notice the problem and attempt to recover the damaged data from another location on the disk. MBR had no way of knowing if its data was corrupted — you’d only see there was a problem when the boot process failed or your drive’s partitions vanished.
    • ftrout's avatar
      ftrout
      Brass Contributor

      It's necessary to have Creators Update if you wish to run the tool from within Windows (Full OS). MBR2GPT does support older versions of Windows 10 when ran from the WinPE thats included in Windows ADK 1703.

  • ftrout's avatar
    ftrout
    Brass Contributor

    One thing I noticed when performing the conversion during an upgrade task sequence, you will lose the ability to "rollback" to previous build of Windows 10. This makes sense but I didn't see it documented anywhere.

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