Clone MBR 2TB to GPT 4TB HDD

HyeVltg3

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I have no idea why this isnt as easy as I thought it would be.
Tried Macrium Reflect and now AOMEI Backupper

both can clone, but every time. it converts the Destination drive into MBR and then I have two portions of Unallocated space. that when I try to resize the main "data" partition into, has issues because MBR cant do >2TB. just wasted 8hrs clone the same disk twice (takes about 4hrs for one 2TB to 4TB Clone)

Is there an easier method for this, I cannot just plain Select All & Copy+Paste Source 2TB to 4TB, the 2TB is my old Main Data drive beside my Boot drive. I junctioned most of the main parts of windows there so Copy+paste runs into permission issues and other problematic things, that a Clone doesnt have problems with.
 
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Thanks for the quick response. There has been a fair amount of posts and various other articles on the net to the effect that it was possible to successfully clone a MBR-partitioned disk to a GPT-partitioned disk and the resultant cloned disk would be bootable as it resides on a GPT-partitioned disk.

My experience has been different along these lines...

While it is true (as mcnumpty has pointed out in this thread) that if a MBR-partitioned source disk is cloned to a GPT-partitioned destination disk on a partition-by-partition basis (NOT as a disk-to-disk clone), the cloning operation will be successful in that the destination disk will be the recipient of all the cloned partition contents of the source drive and retain its...

Kurz

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Cloning is the only way to make a Harddrive bootable.

If you are not concerned with making it bootable then you can use a program like 'FastCopy' In Admin mode to copy the files. (It'll remove permissions)

GPT and MBR is how the data is stored so when you clone it'll keep that same format.
Since GPT and MBR are chosen when the drive is first formatted you have make that decision then.
Since you need GPT you should just start over (Fresh install) if you want it bootable, on the 4TB drive
 
and pretty sure macrium can do it --but think you need to prepare the receiving drive first

i dont have drives that large so never tried though i do use macrium

but think something like this

open cmd as administrator

diskpart

select disk 2 --this assumes disk 2 is your target disk

clean

exit

then go to disk management and initialize disk 2 as GPT

then in macrium drag and drop the partitions you want cloned to the target disk

the target disk should already have a small GPT partition on it from what we did before--leave that alone

then in macrium its next etc
 


not strictly true --see my solution below this does allow cloning a mbr to gpt

 

HyeVltg3

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I did the last part of your post and still got MBR in the end, I understand that MBR Clones to MBR and GPT to GPT now.
But my Question is how do I Move all data from an MBR drive to a GPT drive, when the simple Copy+paste wont work (have already tried, it skips over a LOT of important files needed to run some programs)
 

Kurz

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Hmm... HyeVltg3 he gave you every specific instructions. I really hope you backed up everything. Because at any point in those instructions if you make a mistake you will loose data if done incorrectly.
 

HyeVltg3

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Hey sorry for the delay in posting, just went from 1 Problem to now 2 problems.(will explain at the bottom)

@McNumpty, before this thread I used Macrium, and pretty much did exactly what you said, minus the part about Diskpart!, thats what I meant by doing "the last part of your post".
@Kruz, I dont understand how I can run into issues if I'm cloning Source to Destination, theres nothing on the 4TB, its just a bare empty drive. I'd be in trouble if something happened to the 2TB, the 2tb is where all my data is. but a clone only works in one direction, source to destination, unless Im mistaken and its writting something to the Source drive also??!
Not sure if I wasnt being clear, I'm trying to move all data from 2TB HDD to 4TB HDD. but when I do it manually, the copy operation finishes but many folders with .dll files and other important files dont get copied over. especially .Ink files (shortcuts)

Problem 2:
while I was just looking at Disk Management, about to format the 4TB from Problem #1, I have another much older GPT 3TB HDD data drive that I had partitioned oddly; I left about 40GB of space Unallocated at the beginning.
So to fix it, in Windows Disk Management, I clicked "Extend Volume" and included in the 40GB, sadly there must have been 41GB unallocated, so it left 1GB right in the middle, and this turned the "color" of the drive from Primary to some Brown/Orange color. So I wanted to redo the extend, so I clicked on the oddly placed 40GB partition and hit "Delete Volume" ....and it deleted the 40GB AND the 3TB(2.7TB) Partitions!
man now I'm super depressed, currently running EaseUS Partition Master and it just completed "Fast" scan and DIDNT find any partitions, so now its switched over to "Complete Search" ... really dont need this kind of stress at the moment haha.
 

HyeVltg3

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No, again you're not understanding what I was saying. I already tried it your way BEFORE making this help thread, but I did not do the diskpart portion of your instructions. thats it. thats all I was saying.

EDIT: just realized where it got confusing "I did the last part of your post and still got MBR in the end" from my earlier post, yes I should have mentioned I was talking in pastense, before asking for help (making this thread) I had already used Macrium. I was just pointing out I had already done it, but did not do it the way you wrote it out. that was all. sorry if I was saying it like I had presently tried it and failed.
 
mcnumpty23:
Have you *personally* used the Macrium program along the lines you indicated and were able to clone a MBR partitioned disk to a GPT partitioned disk and the resultant clone was bootable and totally functional in all respects?

If so, could you tell me how you were able to mark the GPT cloned disk's boot partition (presumably the System Reserved partition) Active so that the disk would be a bootable device?

I'd be much obliged for this info.
 


vaguely recall doing it a while ago--though not because my drives were over 2tb--just because i am always messing about with stuff i shouldnt to see what happens lol

cant remember if i used diskpart to mark it active or easybcd

or may even have used macrium--if you install the macrium pre-boot environment it has a great tool to fix boot problems

that tool has got me working when using bootrec in command prompt wouldnt

 


hey not to worry i thought you meant in the present tense since it followed my post lol

 
HyvVltg3:
Just out of curiosity, were you ultimately able to clone your MBR-partitioned disk to a GPT-partitioned disk, and if so, were you able to successfully boot to the cloned GPT-partitioned disk?

And if so, what disk-cloning program did you use that was successful in achieving this capability?
 

HyeVltg3

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actually put the problem on hold while I fixed my new more important issue (deleted my older 4tb volume filled with 3years of data)
But what I gathered from the various attempts at cloning MBR to GPT, is that it just wasnt working, I could not "Clone" two different partition table formats and just stick them together and everything would be great.
No matter what the Destination disk would always take the format of the Source, so in my case, MBR would always clone into an MBR. it would convert my 4TB into MBR during the cloning process.
In the end, I do not think Cloning is the proper way to go about this. if you are upgrading from MBR to GPT, I believe you're SOL because its like sticking a New CPU into an older motherboard, it would fit because of the different socket numbers, you can cramp it in there, but it wont boot.

Best you can do is start GPT and move everything from the MBR disk into the new GPT.

I'm assuming you wanted to move your Boot drive, that atm is MBR, to a GPT drive (>2TB HDD) ?
 
Thanks for the quick response. There has been a fair amount of posts and various other articles on the net to the effect that it was possible to successfully clone a MBR-partitioned disk to a GPT-partitioned disk and the resultant cloned disk would be bootable as it resides on a GPT-partitioned disk.

My experience has been different along these lines...

While it is true (as mcnumpty has pointed out in this thread) that if a MBR-partitioned source disk is cloned to a GPT-partitioned destination disk on a partition-by-partition basis (NOT as a disk-to-disk clone), the cloning operation will be successful in that the destination disk will be the recipient of all the cloned partition contents of the source drive and retain its GPT-partition scheme.

BUT WITH ONE CRUCIAL EXCEPTION...

The GPT-partitioned disk - the recipient of the cloned contents of the source disk - will not boot. The OS will not allow the boot partition (ordinarily the System Reserved partition) to be marked ACTIVE. The message "The ACTIVE command can only be used on fixed MBR disks" will appear when the user attempts to invoke the Active command.

However, this type of cloning operation could still be useful to a user under these circumstances...
Say, for storage purposes a HDD of whatever size is being used as a secondary drive in the user's system. The disk is MBR-partitioned. Now the user desires more disk-space available in a large-capacity disk, e.g., a 3 TB or 4 TB or even larger disk, that will also be used for storage. So his objective is to clone the contents of his present storage disk over to the new larger disk. If he fails to create the GPT-partitioning scheme (rather than MBR) on the new disk, then a substantial amount of disk-space will not be available because of the inherent MBR limitation.

Under those circumstances it would behoove the user to ensure that he creates a GPT-partitioned disk that will serve as the destination disk for the cloned contents of the MBR-partitioned source disk so that the entire disk-space capacity of the > 2 TB disk will be available. Since this disk is serving solely as a storage device, no OS will be cloned so booting to the drive is not material.
 
Solution