- Aug 8, 2018
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The internet is a useful place, tough it let me down on this issue. I had to burn 2 whole days for a solution. Before I get to it, let me get off some steam. People are just too lazy these days. Whether they don't want to do any research AT ALL, or they can't give an answer without MISSING-EVERY-IMPORTANT-DETAIL! Of course if you found this then you did enough research.
I'll explain how I made it work without reinstalling windows.
This thread is regarding using a new SSD for the (Windows 10) operating system, moving from MBR to GPT on a UEFI supporting system. Windows 7 and downwards will give you all sorts of trouble with UEFI booting. Consider upgrading
prerequisites:
I personally migrated from windows 10 installed on a Samsung 840 evo ssd MBR drive
to a Samsung 960 evo m.2 ssd GPT drive. If you have windows 8 and up (and your system has UEFI) then don't even bother with initializing drives in MBR, learn from my mistakes (If your drive is not sata 3 or better then keep it MBR/throw away).
*If you migrate to a samsung SSD, then you can make your life easier by downloading everything you need from this link - I used the NVMe driver, the MAGICIAN thingy and the Migration tool.
Let's get to it:
1. Make sure your PC is turned off. When you do, unplug the power cord and hold the power button for 10 seconds to get "leftover electricity" out.
2. Connect your new drive via it's intended connector to the MotherBoard.
3. Turn your system on, start windows and go to 'Disk management' via pressing the right mouse button on the START icon or typing "dsk" (without quotes, the full name is dskmgmt but dsk is enough) after pressing START.
4. Your will have a new window asking for you to choose MBR or GPT. If not then you either didn't connect it properly or it may be damaged (Restarting is your friend). What people tend to omit is the fact that MBR supports legacy\BIOS booting and GPT is for UEFI booting. If you have a Samsung drive and want to use the Migration tool (you do), then your choice is not important because it'll be overriden to match the drive protocol of the drive that you are cloning (or migrating from, same meaning technically).
5. If your new drive is from Samsung - Install the samsung drivers for your SSD. 'NVMe express driver 3' in my case. Then install the Migration tool and MAGICIAN. The migrating process with Samsung's tool is pretty straightforward, but here's a guide. SKIP 6.
6. If Your new drive isn't from Samsung and there's no backup\cloning\migrating tool provided for it by the drive's manufacturer, then you can clone your data using Macrium Reflect which has a FREE version. You need to consider the transition from mbr to gpt when cloning with 3rd party software, and though many answers appear online, it's best to first convert your existing drive to gpt and only then clone it.
7. Check if your new drive is set to MBR or GPT after migrating. If you go into Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management, select the Disk Management screen, right-click on the disk part (little box on the left, not the volume part) of the picture of the drive, and select Properties, you can read the "Partition Style" property in plain whatever-language-you-have-localized. IF IT'S GPT SKIP 8.
8. If your new drive is MBR, you need to use MBR2GPT to convert it, which is included with the Windows 10 Creator's Update (I haven't researched the alternatives). Use THIS guide to convert. If you don't have an 'Command Prompt' icon in your 'Advanced options' menu then use THIS (sorry guys, the link is dead now and too much time has passed for me to even remember how I did this and what to look for) guide to Create a reset recovery image that will fix it. you can type "exit" ,without quotes, to exit the command prompt and restart you PC.
9. Assuming you now have a working and bootable GPT drive with Windows on it, go to your UEFI menu to change SecureBoot and CMS settings.
You need to make sure any compatibily\legacy mode is disabled and everything is set to boot from UEFI. SecureBoot should be set to Windows mode, not 'other OS'.
If you have a shiny ASUS ROG MoBo like me, you will find everything you need under the 'Boot' tab in your UEFI menu. Make sure you set it to boot from your new drive.
Hope this helps someone, as for some reason all other guides are over-simplistic.
I'll explain how I made it work without reinstalling windows.
This thread is regarding using a new SSD for the (Windows 10) operating system, moving from MBR to GPT on a UEFI supporting system. Windows 7 and downwards will give you all sorts of trouble with UEFI booting. Consider upgrading
prerequisites:
I personally migrated from windows 10 installed on a Samsung 840 evo ssd MBR drive
to a Samsung 960 evo m.2 ssd GPT drive. If you have windows 8 and up (and your system has UEFI) then don't even bother with initializing drives in MBR, learn from my mistakes (If your drive is not sata 3 or better then keep it MBR/throw away).
*If you migrate to a samsung SSD, then you can make your life easier by downloading everything you need from this link - I used the NVMe driver, the MAGICIAN thingy and the Migration tool.
Let's get to it:
1. Make sure your PC is turned off. When you do, unplug the power cord and hold the power button for 10 seconds to get "leftover electricity" out.
2. Connect your new drive via it's intended connector to the MotherBoard.
3. Turn your system on, start windows and go to 'Disk management' via pressing the right mouse button on the START icon or typing "dsk" (without quotes, the full name is dskmgmt but dsk is enough) after pressing START.
4. Your will have a new window asking for you to choose MBR or GPT. If not then you either didn't connect it properly or it may be damaged (Restarting is your friend). What people tend to omit is the fact that MBR supports legacy\BIOS booting and GPT is for UEFI booting. If you have a Samsung drive and want to use the Migration tool (you do), then your choice is not important because it'll be overriden to match the drive protocol of the drive that you are cloning (or migrating from, same meaning technically).
5. If your new drive is from Samsung - Install the samsung drivers for your SSD. 'NVMe express driver 3' in my case. Then install the Migration tool and MAGICIAN. The migrating process with Samsung's tool is pretty straightforward, but here's a guide. SKIP 6.
6. If Your new drive isn't from Samsung and there's no backup\cloning\migrating tool provided for it by the drive's manufacturer, then you can clone your data using Macrium Reflect which has a FREE version. You need to consider the transition from mbr to gpt when cloning with 3rd party software, and though many answers appear online, it's best to first convert your existing drive to gpt and only then clone it.
7. Check if your new drive is set to MBR or GPT after migrating. If you go into Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management, select the Disk Management screen, right-click on the disk part (little box on the left, not the volume part) of the picture of the drive, and select Properties, you can read the "Partition Style" property in plain whatever-language-you-have-localized. IF IT'S GPT SKIP 8.
8. If your new drive is MBR, you need to use MBR2GPT to convert it, which is included with the Windows 10 Creator's Update (I haven't researched the alternatives). Use THIS guide to convert. If you don't have an 'Command Prompt' icon in your 'Advanced options' menu then use THIS (sorry guys, the link is dead now and too much time has passed for me to even remember how I did this and what to look for) guide to Create a reset recovery image that will fix it. you can type "exit" ,without quotes, to exit the command prompt and restart you PC.
9. Assuming you now have a working and bootable GPT drive with Windows on it, go to your UEFI menu to change SecureBoot and CMS settings.
You need to make sure any compatibily\legacy mode is disabled and everything is set to boot from UEFI. SecureBoot should be set to Windows mode, not 'other OS'.
If you have a shiny ASUS ROG MoBo like me, you will find everything you need under the 'Boot' tab in your UEFI menu. Make sure you set it to boot from your new drive.
Hope this helps someone, as for some reason all other guides are over-simplistic.
Last edited:
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