Restoring System Image Without Reformatting

[Flubly]

I made a system image of my hard-drive and then converted the drive to GPT from MBR. When I went to restore my image of windows, it wants to reformat the hard-drive. Won't this convert it back to MBR?

Is it impossible to restore a Windows image from an MBR drive onto a GPT drive?

I understand that I can buy another hard-drive for my GPT needs, but I'd like to exhaust my other options first.

 

[karlsnooks]

I made a system image of my hard-drive and then converted the drive to GPT from MBR. When I went to restore my image of windows, it wants to reformat the hard-drive. Won't this convert it back to MBR?
YES

Is it impossible to restore a Windows image from an MBR drive onto a GPT drive?
IMPOSSIBLE

I understand that I can buy another hard-drive for my GPT needs, but I'd like to exhaust my other options first.

Welcome to SevenForums!

If you objective is simply to restore the data then that will be possible.

 

[Flubly]

Will restoring the data enable me to use programs I had installed without having to reinstall each one? Will the registry be restored?

 

[karlsnooks]

No.
No.

 

[Flubly]

Alright, thanks for the info. I guess this means I need to buy a second hard-drive.

 

[SIW2]

3rd party programs can do it.

Not windows system image as far as I know.

You could restore your windows system image as mbr style, then use a 3rd party program to non destructively convert.

 

[Flubly]

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Update: As you guessed, I don't think that will work for me because the system image has windows on it. Evidently the motherboard's firmware interface is different between MBR and GPT. I tried AOMEI and the limitation was described in their help section. I assume this is the problem because when I follow the instructions and right click the drive, no option to convert is listed.

 

[karlsnooks]

fluby
Convert basic disk to dynamic disk.