How to make my Win7 OS drive work on new PC

BlueBonnett said:

So I finally got my new computer, a Dell with no CSM/legacy boot so I have to work with UEFI. All the resources I see on the web are about INSTALLING Windows 7 on a modern PC but I'm not doing a clean install, I'm just moving my SSD from my old computer to this one.

How do I make it bootable on a UEFI motherboard? I'm guessing the first step is to convert the MBR disk to GPT which I did with EaseUS but that still doesn't make it bootable. I have the drive image backed up so I am ready to experiment.

What is the exact model of the Dell? Win 7 wont efi boot without csm unless you use some kind of shim to get around lack of csm support.

nt351 said:

disk:0 is the disk on which Windows 10 is, and boots and operates the windows 10 computer. Very likely you also have a spinning hard-drive where you keep your videos, games, etc.
So, your SSD, which you attached for the purpose of converting, should be disk:2

No, the pre-installed Win10 on the new PC is disk 1. I confirmed it with diskpart. The attached SSD is disk 0. I don't have an HDD either, my movies and games are on a bigger SSD.

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SIW2 said:

What is the exact model of the Dell? Win 7 wont efi boot without csm unless you use some kind of shim to get around lack of csm support.

Vostro 3681.
A shim? I heard MS quietly added UEFI support in Win7 with update KB5017361 but I've been having trouble finding it. Will that work?

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By the way, my Win7 SSD doesn't have that 100 MB EFI partition. If this is the reason the OS is not being recognized by UEFI, is it possible to recreate it and copy-paste the EFI/Boot folder?

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I added an EFI drive from the installation disk using this guide and copied the EFI/boot files.

It finally recognizes the OS and boots... but crashes. Big red bar at the top forms after pressing "Start windows normally", the same thing that happened on the VM.

So back to the drawing board. At this point, I don't mind just doing a clean install on my modern PC and copying everything over, except for the fact that my patched bootable Windows 7 ISO freezes at "loading files".

Alright, I had a look at this thread and patched my already-patched ISO so now it's 12GB! I was able to get setup to start on the new PC but now it's stuck on "starting windows" after the second reboot. No crash, though.
I don't understand why there's no startup repair, it would've been over by now if there was.

Another edit: While running the 7UPv64P.cmd there was this following error, does it have anything to do with my current roadblock?

Code:

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UpdatePack 7 / 2008 R2 / 24.2.14 Setup
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Failed to mount the image, the error code: 11.
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OK   
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https://www.dell.com/community/Vostr.../7801886#M4576

Acronis image

What do you mean a cd ?

I think the idea is that both partitions ( the esp partition and the os partition) in the .tibx file are restored to a disk

Have you never heard of disk/partition imaging and restoring before ?

It is win7 pro x64

I supposed to copy my original MBR OS to this GPT SSD?

It needs the correct boot files and a whole lot of drivers. And because the new hardware is very different your old os would need to be syprep-generalized or instead use an adjust to new hardware module. which are avialble in various programs such as O&O or paragon, etc

If I overwrite all that with this disk image

Easier to use the image. If it boots and runs fine, then install any programs you desperately need and copy over any documents etc from your mbr installation.