How to restore windows 7 image created in EFI to restore in UEFI mode

Hi

So if i understand correctly, your current partition table is MBR but the system is capable of booting in UEFI mode and for some reason you need to migrate to UEFI boot mode/GPT partition table. The easiest way of course is to just do a clean install of Windows 7 in UEFI mode ( only x64 version supports UEFI ). But if you want to preserve the current installation, i would recommend the below steps.

1. Use "Macrium Reflect free" to backup your Windows partition to an external disk. You can optionally use a similar imaging program like "Acronis" but make sure not to backup any other partition or MBR. We only need the image of "C" drive.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQA7NlLvxg8

2. Create Macrium Recovery media and boot from it with the eternal drive is attached. Make sure the recovery media can see and access your backup image.

Create a Windows PE Rescue Environment

3. Use "Windows 7 x64" edition to perform a clean install of Windows in UEFI mode. I assume you know how to install Windows in UEFI mode so skipping the details. Btw, you don't need to activate Windows or install any drivers. We are doing this only to allow Windows setup to create and initialize MSR and ESP ( EFI System Partition ) partitions with necessary files required for UEFI boot.

( You should perform a DISKPART CLEAN" operation to zero wipe the old partition table. Otherwise setup may throw errors )

DISKPART : At PC Startup

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

4. Once the install finished, reboot the system to Macrium recovery disc and restore the OS partition using the image we created earlier.

Rescue a system with the Windows PE environment


If everything goes as planned, Windows will boot in UEFI mode once the restore is finished. This is an indirect way but yest it is easy to follow. More direct way is to convert the current partition table to GPT without data loss, create ESP and MSR partitions manually and then initialize the ESP with necessary boot files.