Hello admin! How to convert GPT to MBR without data loss on a laptop with installed Windows 8.1?

My laptop has Windows 8.1 installed on the drive (C:), and there is also a drive (D:) with personal files and I want to completely convert the hard drive from GPT to MBR without losing data, but so that Windows 8.1 boots, activation does not fail, and all programs remain functional, then I will install a second one Windows system 7.

How can this be accomplished? I understand that the question is very difficult, since I did not find a detailed answer on the Internet, just guesses.

Hello friends! My name is Vladimir and in today’s article I will show you how to convert GPT to MBR without losing data on a laptop with Windows 8.1 installed (nothing will happen to the operating system and your data). But that's what I said in simple words, to put it in technical language, it should sound like this: today we are with you we transform the standard for placing hard disk partition tables GPT disk in MBR.

Why do many users disable the UEFI interface on their laptops and convert the hard drive to MBR? I believe that this is only for installing Windows 7, because Windows 7 will not be installed on a new laptop with a GPT disk. But if you disable UEFI, Windows 8.1 will not boot and to install Windows 7 you will have to delete everything from the hard drive, including Win 8.1 itself. Today’s article offers a universal way out of the situation. We will convert your laptop hard drive from GPT to MBR without deleting data, and we will restore Windows 8.1 booting!

• Note: The question is really difficult and the article is given to you primarily for your information! Just in case, before starting work, I recommend that all users (including experienced ones) play it safe and create a complete backup copy laptop hard drive in the program or, or create (best), since hidden section with the program to roll back to the store state after converting the hard drive from GPT to MBR will not work.
• If you need the old Windows 7 on your laptop with a UEFI BIOS, then you can do it easier, install it on .

So we have a new one Acer laptop(BIOS UEFI) with pre-installed factory Windows 8.1.

In Disk Management, all partitions of the hard disk are visible, including hidden ones (the third hidden partition MSR 128 MB is required for GPT disks - it is not visible in Disk Management, but we will see it in Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15).

The drive (C:) has Windows 8.1 installed, and the drive (D:) contains a lot of personal information.

The hard drive is converted to a GUID partition table, abbr. GPT

You can also see this on the command line by typing the following commands:

diskpart

lis dis

A GPT hard drive always has an asterisk next to it.

Using a bootable USB flash drive Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15convert a hard drive from GPT to MBR without data loss

First we need bootable flash drive with the Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 program, it is this program that converts the hard drive from GPT to MBR without losing data, but after the conversion, Windows 8.1 will not boot and the system will have to be restored to boot, we will do all this in today’s article.

We connect the bootable USB flash drive to the laptop and reboot, enter the BIOS, here we immediately disable UEFI and enable Legacy (I created a normal bootable flash drive with the Paragon program, not UEFI),

Reboot and enter the laptop boot menu, select the flash drive with the Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 program to boot

In the main program window we see the laptop’s hard drive, all partitions are visible, including hidden ones (the third hidden partition MSR 128 MB, required for GPT disks, is now visible). Click on the small arrow to display disks and partitions in a more convenient list.

To avoid creating on your hard drive Additional section with logical drives, we delete all hidden partitions on the laptop (you don’t have to delete anything at all, read the information at the end of the article), we leave only the partition with Windows 8.1 installed, to which the program assigned the letter (E:) (formerly C:) and the partition with our files,to which the program assigned the letter (F:)(former D:) .

Right-click on the first hidden section and select “Delete”

Check the box “Do not request a volume label next time” "and press the button"Yes."

The first hidden section has been removed.

Right-click on the second hidden section and select “Delete”

Click on the “Yes” button.

Click "Yes".

The second hidden section has been removed.

Right-click on the third hidden section and select “Delete”

Click on the “Yes” button.

“You are about to destroy the system partition. The system may not boot. Do you really want to perform the operation?"

Click "Yes".

The third hidden section has been removed.

Right-click on the fourth hidden section and select “Delete”. This section contains the factory settings of the laptop.

"Yes"

The time has come Convert GPT to MBR without data loss.

Right-click on the laptop hard drive and select “ Convert Basic GPT to Basic MBR disk» .

Click "Convert"

"Yes"

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 works in deferred operation mode, click “Apply” and the program will begin to carry out all the operations we have specified.

GPT to MBR conversion without data loss completed successfully!

Create a hidden System Reserved partition (Reserved by the system, volume 300 MB) with files Windows boot 8.1 and make it active

Friends, now all we have to do is create a hidden active System Reserved partition in the program (Reserved by the system, volume 300 MB) with Windows 8.1 download files. By the way, you can do this on the command line by booting from installation disk Windows 8.1, but in this article we are working with Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15.

Right-click on the unallocated area of ​​the hard drive and select “Create Partition”.

The program shows the unallocated space from which we can create a partition.

We take the delimiter from the right edge and compress the unallocated space, creating a 300 MB partition at the very beginning of the hard drive. We take the file system NTFS.

Click "Yes"

Making the section active.

Right-click on the newly created partition (F:) and select “Make the section active.”

“Are you sure you want to make this section active?”

Click "Apply"

Click “Yes” and the program starts working.

An active hidden System Reserved partition has been created on the laptop’s hard drive (Reserved by the system, volume 300 MB) and now we will copy the Windows 8.1 download files to it.

Creating a boot configuration for Windows 8.1

In the initial system installation window, open the command line using the keyboard shortcut Shift+F10.

Enter the following commands on the command line:

diskpart

lis vol (displays all partitions of the hard drive)

exit

We see that the recovery environment has assigned a drive letter (F:) to the partition with Windows 8.1 installed, so we enter the following command

bcdboot F:\Windows (create a boot configuration for Windows 8.1)

Reboot and enter Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 booted perfectly on MBR disk. Nothing happened with activation. All programs work.

Disk properties. The hard drive has a main boot entry MBR.

Disk Management

Article on this topic:

When might it be necessary to convert GPT to MBR? The most likely situation is to display an error message like this:

This can happen when you try to install Windows system 7 with x86 architecture onto a logical disk with partitions for GPT system. Sometimes the reason may be the lack of UEFI BIOS on the PC.

There are standard Windows utilities (including those that work during installation) and special software from third parties to solve this common problem. In this guide we will try to explain as clearly as possible options for changing GPT to MBR. It’s also worth knowing that it doesn’t exist effective way GPT to MBR conversion on logical drive with the system, without possible loss of information on it.

This option is feasible if you have already received the dialog box described above about incompatible GPT partition styles. The obvious advantage of this method is that it can be used not only when installing a “clean” system, but also while working in it (only if hard drive not systemic).

Attention! All information contained on the HDD will be erased! Knowing this in advance, you can follow this sequence:

• By time new installation Windows (at the stage of being able to select volumes for installation), you need to hold down the Shift + F10 buttons to open the window command line.
• Type the command diskpart, after that - list disk. These actions will make it possible to display a list of all physical disks on this computer
• Run a new command - select disk N, letter N in in this case number of the disk that will be converted.
• Next, you are given two options to choose from: score the team clean, for complete disk cleanup (deleting all partitions) or the option to delete specific partitions selectively using commands select volume, detail disk, and delete volume(the picture shows exactly this moment). The first option is preferable due to speed and simplicity.
• After deleting partitions, enter convert mbr on the command line - this will change the style of the disk partition to MBR.
• When finished, type Exit to exit Diskpart, close the command prompt window and you can continue with the current installation of the system - the error about partition styles will no longer bother you! You will also have the opportunity to create new partitions - just click “set up disk” in the partition setup window.

This option is only suitable for a non-system physical hard disk. To do this, you need a valid operating system (Windows 7, 8, 8.1).

From the desktop, hold down the Win + R keys to launch the Run window and enter diskmgmt.msc in the input field and go to the system disk management routine.

In the Disk Management view that opens, you need to find the disk that requires conversion. It is necessary to delete absolutely all partitions on it. This is done by right-clicking on the required partition and selecting the “Delete volume” option. This procedure must be performed for each section. hard drive!

At the end of the above described manipulations, you must click on the disk name item using right button and in the context list click the option “ Convert to MBR disk».

As a result, you will have the opportunity to develop the required volume structure on the HDD yourself.

Specialized paid utilities for changing GPT and MBR partitions with the ability to save all data on logical volumes.

In addition to the above-described “native” options provided in the system itself, for any conversion of GPT partitions to MBR and MBR to GPT, there are programs from third-party manufacturers - Minitool Partition Wizard and Acronis Disk Director. The only disadvantage of this software is that they are paid.

There is another one free analogue programs with similar capabilities - Aomei Partition Assistant. But this program cannot be recommended by our experts. To ensure 100% data retention when updating section styles, especially if the information is on HDD disk important, we strongly recommend contacting our service center "

Quite often, users are faced with what they think is a big problem when it becomes necessary to convert the partition style from GPT to MBR. This may be due to many factors, among which the main one is the impossibility of installing some OSes in such partitions and compatibility with the new standard of the UEFI primary input/output system, which replaced the BIOS. There are several ways to convert partitions with more modern GPT markup to MBR and vice versa. But you can replace one style with another either with or without saving the data. Let's consider each of these options, since some actions may be useful even when installing the operating system on your computer for the first time or reinstalling it.

Difference between GPT and MBR styles

First, let's look at what exactly is the difference between these styles, and what each of them can be used for. The MBR (with boot record) partitioning is considered to be obsolete today, and has been replaced by the new GPT style. This type of partitioning on a hard drive is mandatory if the hard drive has a capacity of 2 TB or more. But to ensure correct work with such partitions and use of their full capacity, you need an updated version of the primary system, designated UEFI.

In case of using MBR and BIOS installation On modern computers, disks of this size become simply meaningless, since the BIOS does not support them, and if the UEFI mode is disabled, despite the media being detected in the primary system, the full disk space will be inaccessible. So, think a hundred times to what extent it is advisable to perform the actions described below.

Problems with operating systems

But the main problem is that outdated operating systems like Windows 7, which are still popular among many users, are not installed on partitions with GPT partitions, and do not even support the main UEFI operating mode. To carry out the installation, some users suggest disabling UEFI to use Legacy mode, as for a regular BIOS. On the other hand, if you purchase new computer with the primary UEFI system already installed instead of the BIOS, G8 will also not install with UEFI disabled. Thus, we get two mutually exclusive factors. However, such obstacles can be overcome by using sufficient simple methods, but it will take a little effort.

Conversion during Windows installation

First of all, let's focus on whether to install Windows or vice versa. In this case, the safety of the data on the disk is not guaranteed, since it will have to be formatted during the installation of the operating system. Despite the fact that these questions are only indirectly related to the main topic, it does not hurt to have knowledge on them.

At one stage after starting the installation process, the installer of the same “seven” displays a message stating that installation to the selected partition is impossible. In this case, the simplest solution is to delete absolutely all partitions on the disk and install Windows in the unallocated area.

You can also create a system partition for Windows yourself, and use the rest of the space for logical volumes. However, this will not automatically create a special reserved partition, which will affect the fault tolerance of the installed OS. The installation partition will be automatically converted to desired style.

Thus, if we are talking about how to change GPT to MBR, you need to use the command line tools (Shift + F10), in which the following commands are written, shown in the image above. After this, you can continue installing the system as usual.

How to change GPT to MBR: creating a bootable USB flash drive and selecting the start mode of the primary I/O system

Now let's go back to the starting point and determine the steps that may be required to convert styles from an already installed OS (for example, Windows 8/1). To do this, you will initially need to create a bootable USB flash drive with Hard Disk Manager version 15 from Paragon or a similar utility from Acronis (Disk Director). The media itself is simply created in a small Rufus application, and then placed first among boot devices.

Immediately in the settings of the primary system, you must immediately change the boot mode (Boot Mode) from UEFI to Legacy and disable Secure Boot. Such actions are only necessary if a regular bootable flash drive was created for MBR, and not EFI.

Partition conversion process

Now you need to boot from the created media. The essence of how to change the GPT style to MBR comes down to deleting all partitions in the program at the first stage, including those reserved by the system for recovery, leaving only the one on which the installed OS is located.

When deleting backup partitions, in the confirmation window, be sure to check the box to not request a volume label next time. Once these steps are completed, only the base GPT partition will remain. How to convert GPT to MBR at this stage?

To do this, you need to select the appropriate conversion item in the additional menu via RMB and confirm your actions. Since the operation will be transferred to the deferred category (as well as in other utilities like Acronis Disk Director), you need to click the “Apply” button, after which the conversion process will start.

Additional steps to create a backup partition

But that's not all. The fact is that after changing the style, the system simply will not boot, and besides, you need to create a backup partition for it with boot data of the installed OS itself with a volume of about 300 MB. This can be done through the RMB menu on an unallocated area and selecting the option to create a partition, after which you will need to specify its size and file system(NTFS), and after completing operations through the same menu, make the partition active.

Creating a configuration to boot the installed system

At the final stage, it remains to create a configuration so that the same “eight” could boot with the new partition style without problems. In this case, you need to restart the computer, boot from the installation media and call the command console. In it you need to determine which letter is assigned to the active boot partition. To do this, first enter and then - lis dis, which will display all active sections.

We remember the drive letter on which the system is installed, execute the exit command for the main tool, and after it enter the line bcdboot N:\Windows, where N is the letter of the system partition. After this, we reboot the computer again, but this time normal mode, setting the UEFI boot to normal, and rejoice. You can check the changed style directly through the partition properties on the volume tab.

Windows Tools

In principle, speaking of how to change GPT to MBR, one of the solutions for running OSes can be their own tool in the form of the disk management toolkit (diskmgmt.msc).

Here, too, you can delete unnecessary sections, and then through the RMB menu on the unallocated space, select the conversion from one style to another. True, the only and main limitation is that such actions can only be performed for non-system disks or logical partitions, that is, it will be impossible to change the style of a Windows disk directly in the system.

Changing section style using third-party programs

And finally, a few more words about how to change GPT to MBR. As more convenient tools than those available in Windows, you can use special disk programs from Acronis, AOMEI, Paragon and other developers. The operations performed, in general, do not differ much from those just described for Windows tools and boil down to converting unallocated space into the selected style. However, the conversion is much faster and more efficient. The interface of such programs is very similar to the control section Windows disks, but some operations (for example, redistribution disk space) are performed much easier by using the most common fader (slider), by moving which you can select the required dimensions of each section.

Brief summary

That's all briefly about style conversion. As is already clear, if we are talking specifically about performing transformations while preserving a working system and data that may be located specifically in system partition, should be used exclusively disk utilities with preliminary creation bootable media. If saving information is not required, you can convert both at the stage of reinstalling the OS and using Windows, and with the help third party programs. But you won’t be able to change the main partition in a running system even with their help, no matter how much you might want it. It will be impossible to remove it!

In the previous article, we learned how to determine the GPT or MBR hard drive partition used on your computer. Today it’s time to figure out how to convert a GPT disk to MBR and vice versa, without losing data.

When converting GPT to MBR and vice versa, the data on the disk will be destroyed. Therefore, before performing such a conversion, make a backup copy of all data on the disk. The conversion process clears the disk of all data, including old partition table information, then converts to the new disk partition standard and re-partitions the disk.

Technically, this sequence of actions is the only one when converting partition tables. It is worth noting that some third-party developers of disk partition management programs have now already learned how to convert partition table standards from MBR to GPT and back without data loss. But these programs are not officially supported by Microsoft. Therefore, listen to our advice - before using third-party programs, make a backup copy of your data, just in case.

In any case, we recommend that you make a backup copy before converting, then perform the conversion with data loss, and then copy the necessary information back to the disk. Of course, this will take more time, but this is the official tactic and guarantees the safety of the data and the absence of problems with the partition table.

Method one: Convert GPT to MBR using Disk Management utility

Warning: Save all your data before proceeding. This utility will erase everything on the disk you are converting!

Once you have converted a GPT partition to MBR or vice versa, you can start creating partitions on the disk. Just right-click on the unallocated area of ​​the disk in the graphics window and create context menu one or more partitions on a disk. After which, you can write the previously copied data to one of the partitions.

Method two: Convert using the Diskpart console command

In order to convert a GPT disk to MBR or vice versa, you can use the regular console command “diskpart” entered in the command line window. This method may be useful to you when the disk is locked for some reason or is not available for conversion through the graphical window of the Disk Management utility.

Let us remind you once again that before converting a disk, you should make a backup copy of all data. After all, during the conversion process, all data on the disk will be lost!

1. First, open a CMD command line utility window with administrator rights. How to do this, read our article about what is used in your computer?
2. Next, in the Command Prompt window, run two commands in sequence:
3. After that, a list of computer disks will open in the command line window. Remember the number of the disk that needs to be converted. In order to correctly identify the drive, pay attention to its capacity in the “Size” column.
4. Now type new commands, sequentially, one after another. To perform each of them, press “Enter” on the keyboard. Replace the “#” symbol with the number of the disk you want to convert:

   Note that it is the “clean” command that deletes all data on the disk, including partition table information. Which means that when selecting a disk using the “select disk #” command, you should not make a mistake in its serial number!

5. Now you can proceed directly to converting a GPT partition to MBR or MBR to GPT, depending on what exactly you need.

   To convert from MBR to GPT type:

   To convert from GPT to MBR type:

At this point, the disk conversion can be considered complete and you can proceed to using the more convenient Disk Management utility to create partitions. Advanced users can benefit from additional diskpart commands to “split” the disk into partitions. If necessary, transfer the previously copied data to one of the created partitions.

And finally, I would like to remind you that the procedure of converting a GPT disk to MBR without erasing data is quite dangerous. Next time we will test the capabilities of third-party programs that can do this, and we will talk about this in a separate article, but for now we recommend using official conversion methods with deletion and backup data.

Often when windows installation When selecting a target disk, you may come across a message like “The selected disk contains an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed on a GPT disk."

Example of MBR error when installing Windows

The Internet is full of advice, ranging from the strange “you need to press esc very often at a certain stage of installation,” to quite passable, but not always applicable.

Let's try to figure out what can be done in this situation, how best to proceed, and in general the reasons for this error.

Reasons for the error

Long ago, when hard drives were small (less than a terabyte) and used a BIOS, they used what was called a master boot record (MBR). Any operating system Windows family firmly settled in this entry in order to successfully load. This recording was located in a specific area of ​​the hard drive, and accordingly was limited in size. Over time, the BIOS was replaced by the UEFI system. And the screws got bigger. And bright minds realized that MBR is very outdated and that its volume is small. What if a cunning user wants to put ten on his multi-terabyte screw? operating systems? That's how they came up with a replacement for MBR - GPT. And new ones Windows versions(starting with eight exactly) require that the hard drive, if the computer does not have BIOS or UEFI, be formatted in GPT - just in case.

what to do?

Option one is to enable a special boot mode - Legacy. This mode will let the Windows installer know that this computer is compatible with older systems and can use the MBR. Unfortunately, it is impossible to say how to enable this mode in a specific BIOS - every developer hides it as best he can. Here is one example:

Minus this method— if at some point the installer stops responding to Legacy mode, then the method will stop working.

What to do if the previous method cannot be used? The obvious answer is to convert the disk to GPT format. Windows Installer provides this option, but - all data on the disk will be destroyed. There is also a third method - but more on that later.

So, you are ready to convert the disk to GPT, erasing all data. Here are the steps for this:

1. In the Windows installer we reach the disk partitioning stage
2. Click Shift+f10. The console will open (black window with white letters).
3. Enter the following commands sequentially (after each line, press Enter and wait for a new prompt to enter a command):
   1. diskpart list disk select disk clean convert gpt exit
4. At the select disk stage, you need to enter the number of your disk, which is exactly what the list disk command shows. Most likely the disk number is 0. But if you boot from a flash drive, the number may be different.
5. That's it, the disk is formatted

This is all great, but not everyone wants to destroy all the data on their disk. In this case, a wonderful utility will help us. Naturally, for it to work you need a downloadable working copy of windows. You can install old XP for such a thing, you can use some kind of assembly that allows you to run programs. In general, the sequence of actions is as follows:

1. Download the utility and unpack it into an accessible place. windows place(for working Windows - anywhere, for an installer with programs running - most likely on a flash drive with the installer)
2. We get to any Windows console in any way. In a working copy, this can be done with the “cmd” command in the “Run” window.
3. Go to the folder with the unpacked gptgen (for those who do not know how to use the console, google the CD command).
4. Run the following command gptgen.exe -w \\.\\physicaldrive0

Naturally, instead of the zero at the end, you need to substitute the number of the disk that needs to be distilled. How to find out the disk number is described above. Most likely you will still need to confirm the conversion, but the program will kindly ask you for this. All! The disk is converted, the data is in place. The only thing is that it will most likely fly off windows boot loader. But you can either restore it, if necessary, or install it new windows, for which actually all this was started.