Can you move an image file from an MBR drive to a GPT drive?

I've transferred regular files and folders between MBR computers to GPT drives many times without any problem or conversion. Question is, do *image files* transfer that easily?

Macrium and other disk-management pgms talk about using "image files" to backup drives, and they say you can use image files to transfer date to a new computer. But I'm not sure that works if you make a disk image of a drive that's MBR-formatted, and move that image to a computer that's GPT. Does anyone know?

Thanks.

SIW:

SIW2 said:

If you restore a disk image or all critical partitions it will be the same style as the source.

If I read you right, you're saying an image file from an MBR-formatted drive will NOT workably transfer to a GPT-formatted drive. Is that right?

If you want to make image backups of your MBR drive(s) and copy them to a GPT drive, that should be do-able and the image will be usable there.

If as SIW2 said you want to RESTORE an image that you've made of an MBR drive, to another drive that is formatted GPT, it will re-format that drive according to the image you're restoring.

Dunno Macrium, but my Acronis imaging program will allow me to mount the images that I've saved/copied to other drives, and recover any files I might want from the mounted images.

billmcct said:

To add to @SIW2's post:
Even if you restore an MBR image it can easily be converted to GPT with NO data loss.

Thanks, Bill. Yes, I'm familiar with mbr2gpt, and my new 10 laptop has it, but unfortunately my 7 doesn't. And since I was trying to move the contents of the 7's HD to the new 10 laptop, couldn't find a way to do that *on the 7 machine.*
So I've been looking at the possibility--suggested by SIW--of copying the contents of the 7's HD to the 10 as *non-image files*. Only problem with that is that I can't see how to move the "system" partition too. I've got a usb big enough for the entire contents.

T38 said:

.... I was trying to move the contents of the 7's HD to the new 10 laptop, couldn't find a way to do that *on the 7 machine.*

I successfully moved an installed Windows 10 from a Legacy/MBR machine to a replacement UEFI/GPT one. First I clean installed the same version of W10 in UEFI mode on the new machine to create all the correct UEFI partitions. The I used Macrium Reflect to restore JUST the C: partition from the old machine to replace the one created by the clean install. The Reflect rescue media's 'Fix Windows Boot Problems' tool built the correct BCD entry and I soon had a working OS with all my installed software intact.

Bree said:

I successfully moved an installed Windows 10 from a Legacy/MBR machine to a replacement UEFI/GPT one. First I clean installed the same version of W10 in UEFI mode on the new machine to create all the correct UEFI partitions. The I used Macrium Reflect to restore JUST the C: partition from the old machine to replace the one created by the clean install. The Reflect rescue media's 'Fix Windows Boot Problems' tool built the correct BCD entry and I soon had a working OS with all my installed software intact.

That's very encouraging! How did you "install" W10 on the new machine?
Once you have the bare-bones C on the new machine, I like the trick of copying your C: from the old machine to the new one.
Now I'll take a look at SIW2's suggestion of "wincopy."

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SIW2 said:

Much quicker and less writing to disk using wincopy. Also no need to run boot fix thing afterwards.

Not familiar with wincopy but will sure take a look at it, thanks.

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SIW2 said:

initialize the target disk to gpt create esp and msr partitions create a partition for windows use wincopy to copy the contents of source windows partition to the target disk.
wincopy will automatically adjust the volume value and create the boot critical files no extra input necessary. that was the easy bit.
1. your new machine might not have csm support
2. Assuming you can get past 1. above, your win7 might not have all the necessary drivers for the new machine. It will try to install whatever it has in windows\system32\driverstore\filerepository

Woof! Lotsa' info there, some of which I'm not clear on, but here goes:
The new 10 laptop doesn't have anything in the bios/setup that says CSM. It does support older "bios" (as distinct from UEFI) but not sure if that's the same thing.

If possible I'd like to copy all my files on the 7's C: drive *as non-image files,* and move 'em to a new D: partition on the new 10. I've done that with a few, and they work nicely, so I'm guessing that *non-image* files copy from the usb transfer stick to the GPT format. Then if I can just convince the new 10 to *boot* from the D: drive, mission accomplished.
The problem is, even though Macrium Reflect creates a "rescue disk" that supposedly boots from the usb, it's an ISO or img file (I forget which), and while you can *store* those on a GPT drive, they won't *restore* there cuz they're in the MBR format.
Bree suggested just copying my whole C to the new 10 as non-image files, which would solve the problem of missing drivers (since all on the C:). But I don't know how to tell the 10 that the D: drive is bootable. So...still seem to be a few missing pieces.
In any case, thanks for your ideas, and I'll keep studying and trying what you suggested.