How do I clone an MBR partitioned boot disk to GPT partitioned disk

Good news and bad news.

Good news: I did a direct partition to partition clone of my Windows installation and all the files seem to be there (according to the Parted Magic file browser).

Bad news: Windows won't boot. I've tried a startup repair, I've tried to upgrade install to repair Windows, but that can only be done if Windows boots which seems dumb to me like needing to go online to activate your internet connection.

So, for my next trick, I will be running CHKDSK /R on the disk using another computer running Windows 7 x64.

Details on what I did to clone the drive:
I used clonezilla from Parted Magic
I chose disk-to-disk
I chose expert mode
I selected the -rescue flag
I let it run (for 43 hours of stress)
And that brings us to the present.

OH, I also cloned the 100MB system reserved partition. It is in the same place as it was on the old drive: at the beginning.

Hold off on that reinstall if you can afford a little more time. Hate to see relying on that old failing disk as your only copy of your data.

One option to consider first: As you've done a disk-to-disk clone from a 2TB to a 3TB you should still have 1TB unallocated. You can create a partition there and and copy your data to that partition before considering a reinstall. Or if you've got other media available copy to there (which I guess you would've taken that route already).

I'm wondering if there are settings available in the BIOS that can be changed so that those boot files you found can be utilized. It may be that your BIOS is looking to hand off control to some other boot files that don't currently exist. I just don't know enough about UEFI yet.

I'll see if I can call some attention to this thread for some extra help...

F5ing said:

Hold off on that reinstall if you can afford a little more time. Hate to see relying on that old failing disk as your only copy of your data.

One option to consider first: As you've done a disk-to-disk clone from a 2TB to a 3TB you should still have 1TB unallocated. You can create a partition there and and copy your data to that partition before considering a reinstall. Or if you've got other media available copy to there (which I guess you would've taken that route already).

I'm wondering if there are settings available in the BIOS that can be changed so that those boot files you found can be utilized. It may be that your BIOS is looking to hand off control to some other boot files that don't currently exist. I just don't know enough about UEFI yet.

I'll see if I can call some attention to this thread for some extra help...

I appreciate the help. I think I would have been nuts if I had to try all this stuff in a vacuum. However, I already reinstalled and I am copying the last of my games now. I lost one folder of wallpapers, and various small git repositories (which are still on the server I have). So far, everything else has been copied. Now to reinstall ALL the things I had before. Luckily I can use the old Program Files folder as reference.

I really should have done this to begin with and saved myself several days of stress. I would recommend that all future people install fresh and copy. It's faster and the BIOS to UEFI transition, to me, is not worth the trouble.

Oh, in clonezilla there is an option to extend the partition when the copy is done. I did that, so I had no space to put files.

Again, I appreciate all the help this forum has been and I am just glad all of my data is out of the woods.

Edit: Can I mark the thread as closed without marking it solved since there never was a solution to the problem I first asked about?

Glad to see you're in the clear with little loss of data. Sorry though that we couldn't "solve" it.

As far as flagging the thread, my understanding is that it's either "solved" or not, at least as far at the typical user's options are concerned. But then again, I'm pretty new here, and I just haven't noticed any other options.