Convert GPT Disk to MBR Disk

Brink · 15 Feb 2013

eltranced said:

brink you are using two hard drives in your guide? i have new ASUS K55A laptop that has only DISK0 with GPT partitions ... i wouldnt be able to do the converstion with disk management cuz it'll whipe out the c drive its on... so ill have to boot into third party software and nuke the HD? if so any simple software recommendations?

Hello Eltranced,

Are you able to do a factory restore of Windows to restore it if that's what you were wanting to do?

eltranced · 15 Feb 2013

Laptop came with win8 preinstalled... i want to downgrade to win7 and to dual boot too and to do so i have to convert HD to MBR because from what i understood GPT will not allow dual booting and i've tried to run win7 setup to install into windows 8 partition but it wouldnt let me pick it nor other gpt partitions on hard drives Disk0. i had same issue with my separate win8 setup cd ... it wouldnt let me touch any of gpt patitions they were all greyed out.

i'd prefer not to lose w8 recovery partition if its possible ... what would you suggest

Brink · 16 Feb 2013

If you have enough hard drive space, you should be able to shrink the Windows 8 "primary" partition by how much space you want for Windows 7. This will be unallocated space afterwards.

You should then be able to select the unallocated space to install Windows 7 on to dual boot with Windows 8.

Since this is an UEFI installation, you will need to create a bootable UEFI 64-bit Windows 7 DVD or USB to use to install with.

UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows

eltranced · 16 Feb 2013

created seperate partition and followed your "UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows" guide

but wasnt able to test it as i ran into older problem i had when i set up files with copy and paste...
i get error "A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing" in w7 installation.

to overcome this in past i used "windows 7 usb dvd tool" to create bootable usb which i tried as well this time but neither did it get ride of driver error, but also in bios i couldnt boot with "UEFI USB" option ...

how should i proceed?

Brink · 16 Feb 2013

Did you also use step 11 in the tutorial since this is for a 64-bit W7?

In addition, make sure that "Secure Boot" has been disabled in your UEFI settings. W7 will not work with it enabled.

eltranced · 16 Feb 2013

step 11 - yes i have copied bootmgfw.efi from current windows 8 folder C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi

yes also disabled secure boot and in asus bios also turned on "launch CSM"

Brink · 16 Feb 2013

In that case, have your AHCI/SATA drivers (ZIP) version downloaded from your computer or motherboard manufacturer's site to click on "Browse" in the screenshot you posted above, and select the INF file in the ZIP to install them to see if it may work then.

Go ahead and post a screenshot showing the full layout of your Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) screen to see if it may reveal any issues.

eltranced · 16 Feb 2013

the unknown device is from disabled in cmos touchpad

i have tried using a driver back up tool to back up sata drivers ... then browse for them in installation... did no yeild positive.

i will try right now getting bootmgfw from win7 installation source ...sources\install.wim\1\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi

if that fail look for SATA drivers online

eltranced · 16 Feb 2013

Progress - I updated the BIOS but what i think did the trick was using windows 7 version of bootmgfw.efi like you stated in your "UEFI Bootable USB Flash Drive - Create in Windows" guide.

Now im stuck at new message while selecting partitions in install

"The partitions on the disk selected for installation are not in the recommended order. Do you want to proceed with installation?"

should i just proceed?

this is my photo

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I went ahead and proceeded .. crossing my fingers

Brink · 16 Feb 2013

Yep, that should work for you. Please let us know how it went.