Convert standard Lagacy and UEFI without reinstalling Windows

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Are you using Windows on Legacy platform and now want to switch to UEFI based? You do not want to have to reinstall Windows but can still change between these two standards. Then this is the article for you, please refer to the following techtipsnreview article.

Note: I encourage you to reinstall Windows according to UEFI standards if you want to switch to this standard, the transition from Legacy to UEFI will not be as stable as installing Windows. And before performing the conversion, you should copy all important data to another computer in case the worst case can cause data loss.

Read more:

Conversion conditions

• Computers running Windows 7 and above must use 64-bit Windows.
• Create a USB BOOT like this tutorial.

Use AOMEI to convert hard drive format from MBR to GPT

If your computer is running under Legacy and want to switch to UEFI, do the following:

Tips: After each change or setting you should press Apply Now, the implementation will not overlap and cause no errors.

Step 1: Access Mini Windows XP (Must be Mini Win XP okay, larger version does not support).

Step 2: Enter Disk Tool > select AOMEI Partition

Step 3: Right-click on the primary partition, that is, the partition containing your operating system and select Resize Partition as shown below.

Step 4: Set up as follows:

1. Check the option I need to move this partition
2. Drag from left to right to create an empty space (Unallocated) greater than or equal to 528MB. The purpose of this is to make the Tool able to create an EFI partition and some other sub-partitions> then press Apply.
3. Press OK and press the button Apply in the top left corner.

—- Looking for more information —-

According to Microsoft standards, a GPT formatted drive will need a minimum of 3 partitions: ESP, MSR and Windows. And here are the effects of partitions:

• ESP: Partition containing EFI boot boot.
• MSR: Mass storage partition, it is used by Firmware.
• Windows: This is the primary partition containing Windows files.
• Recovery: The partition contains wimre.wim, a WinPE image with a winre package added, Windows Recovery function, Windows image recovery support (wim, vhd) if configured.

Step 5: Make the conversion by right-clicking Disk 1 (Basic MBR) and select the line Convert to GPT Disk and press Apply to convert.

Step 6: Now reset your computer and go into the BIOS to set it up to UEFI standard to use. If you do not know how to do it, please see the article: Instructions on how to set up and install UEFI in BIOS

What about the opposite case, that is, converting from UEFI to Legacy. If you do not want to use the UEFI standard anymore, do the following.

Convert hard drive from GPT to MBR

Because MBR partition architecture only supports a maximum of 4 primary partitions, and by default all GPT architecture, all partitions (except for bootable partitions like EFI) are in Primary format. Therefore, if you want to successfully convert from GPT to MBR without error, just leave a maximum of 4 Primary partitions. If more, you can merge, delete … up to you, as long as you only leave up to 4 Primary partitions.

After the Convert is complete, please Restart the computer and access the BIOS to set it up to run according to Legacy standards. And finally re-enter Mini Windows to Set Active and reload MBR for that partition. So you have successfully converted ?

Epilogue

So I have very detailed instructions for you how to convert, Legacy and UEFI standard converters to use always without reinstalling Windows already. This way is for lazy people only, but I still encourage you to perform a new install for stable.

Kien Nguyen – techtipsnreview