installation onto a new HDD moving stuff around

[MajorFoley]

I'm not sure you can restore an image of an MBR partition to a GPT disc.

Greg??

As I understand it, you have an image of an MBR disc and intend to restore it to a new 3 TB boot drive. Correct?

If you insist on using a 3 TB drive as a boot drive made bootable by the restoration of an MBR image, I'd think you would not be able to use all of it--only 2.2 TB.

You can have MBR and GPT disks on the same system, but you can't have MBR and GPT partitions on the same disk.

Are you locked into the idea of a 3 TB boot drive?

Ah no what I mean is, I just want to restore the image to make sure I definitely have everything I need off of it. Its temporary. I can explore the image using ease todo but it doesn't get everything like if I was logged into it my self. So I want to restore the image make sure I 100% have everything then reformat the drive and turn it into my Games HDD. So should I make it MBR for the temporary use of the drive then change it to GPT or just put it as GPT outright?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm not sure you can restore an image of an MBR partition to a GPT disc.

Greg??

As I understand it, you have an image of an MBR disc and intend to restore it to a new 3 TB boot drive. Correct?

If you insist on using a 3 TB drive as a boot drive made bootable by the restoration of an MBR image, I'd think you would not be able to use all of it--only 2.2 TB.

You can have MBR and GPT disks on the same system, but you can't have MBR and GPT partitions on the same disk.

Are you locked into the idea of a 3 TB boot drive?

Ah no what I mean is, I just want to restore the image to make sure I definitely have everything I need off of it. Its temporary. I can explore the image using ease todo but it doesn't get everything like if I was logged into it my self. So I want to restore the image make sure I 100% have everything then reformat the drive and turn it into my Games HDD. So should I make it MBR for the temporary use of the drive then change it to GPT or just put it as GPT outright?

I'll assume this is an image of an MBR partition.

If you just want to restore it temporarily or as an experiment of some type, then yeah, I would initialize the drive as MBR and then do the restore. I'd assume you will only be able to see 2.2 TB of that 3 TB drive.

If this is a brand new drive that has never been initialized at all, you may not have to manually initialize it---that may be done by the restoration process itself.

No harm done. If you have to manually initialize it, do so.

After you are done with your test, you can then wipe it clean and reinitialize it as GPT and use it as a 3 TB storage drive, if that is your ultimate goal.

It's always a good idea to experiment with your imaging program so that you fully understand the steps required when the stuff hits the fan and you desperately need it to work for real--not as a test.

What are you going to use for a boot drive eventually?

 

[MajorFoley]

I'm not sure you can restore an image of an MBR partition to a GPT disc.

Greg??

As I understand it, you have an image of an MBR disc and intend to restore it to a new 3 TB boot drive. Correct?

If you insist on using a 3 TB drive as a boot drive made bootable by the restoration of an MBR image, I'd think you would not be able to use all of it--only 2.2 TB.

You can have MBR and GPT disks on the same system, but you can't have MBR and GPT partitions on the same disk.

Are you locked into the idea of a 3 TB boot drive?

Ah no what I mean is, I just want to restore the image to make sure I definitely have everything I need off of it. Its temporary. I can explore the image using ease todo but it doesn't get everything like if I was logged into it my self. So I want to restore the image make sure I 100% have everything then reformat the drive and turn it into my Games HDD. So should I make it MBR for the temporary use of the drive then change it to GPT or just put it as GPT outright?

I'll assume this is an image of an MBR partition.

If you just want to restore it temporarily or as an experiment of some type, then yeah, I would initialize the drive as MBR and then do the restore. I'd assume you will only be able to see 2.2 TB of that 3 TB drive.

If this is a brand new drive that has never been initialized at all, you may not have to manually initialize it---that may be done by the restoration process itself.

No harm done. If you have to manually initialize it, do so.

After you are done with your test, you can then wipe it clean and reinitialize it as GPT and use it as a 3 TB storage drive, if that is your ultimate goal.

It's always a good idea to experiment with your imaging program so that you fully understand the steps required when the stuff hits the fan and you desperately need it to work for real--not as a test.

What are you going to use for a boot drive eventually?

Im using that right now a SSD i won at PAX AUS an intel 330.

I'm also going for a 4TB instead of a 3 now, as i saw alot of 3TB's were unreliable especially the seagate ones.

Just gotta remember after i do all that i gotta rename the letters of the drive which shouldn't be too difficult

 

[ignatzatsonic]

There's a hard drive study out there from Backblaze that says Hitachi has the most reliable large hard drives, with Seagate at the bottom and Western Digital in between. Make of it what you will. You can find it with Google.

Intel is a good choice on the SSD. They provide a good toolbox with firmware updates. I used an Intel 320 until a month ago, when its connectors inexplicably failed.

You might find it helpful to give your drives names, rather than just rely on lettering--if you haven't already done so. Less chance of confusion.

 

[gregrocker]

You must initiate the hard drive first in Disk Mgmt. If there is no OS then the Win7 installer or imaging app should initiate it GPT when installing or imaging a UEFI image, or MBR if not.

If you need to manually initiate the HD you can run Convert GPT to make it GPT or Convert MBR to make it MBR. I would run that command after running Diskpart Clean Command.

So should I just initiate GPT regardless then install the image using the winPE disk?

An OS cannot boot on GPT without very extensive workaround which is summarized here: How to convert Windows 7 on MBR/BIOS to GPT/UEFI | MPS Partners

I cannot recommend it and have only read one or two reports given here that it worked for others, so if you attempt it please report back to help others.