[SOLVED] PC wont boot after doing mbr2gpt convert using third party software

Nov 30, 2022
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0
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Hi All,

I hope you can help me, so i have a custom built gaming pc i had built when i was at university in 2020 and i will list the specs i remember or can see as i now do not have access to my uni email account where i had the email with the full specs in.

I have:

Windows 10 Home operating system
Gigabyte H310M S2H 2.0 Motherboard
Intel i5 Processor
32GB DDR4 Ram
512GB Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSD
Gigabyte GeForce® GTX 1660 OC 6G Graphics Card
500w PSU (I think its 500w or maybe 550w??)

So what i was trying to do was get my PC ready so i could upgrade to Windows 11, and to do that i had to change two main things, with the first being to enable TPM which i did successfully within BIOS by enabling Intel platform trust technology (PPT). After this i needed to do the mbr2gpt convert so as to enable secure boot, which i used available software which claims to be able to do the convert whilst still logged into windows 10. Before attempting the convert i deleted the recovery partition as you cannot do the convert if you have more than 3 separate partitions shown in Disk Management Console. I started the convert but got an error message which i cannot remember what it said but I'm sure it was an exceptional error code with lots of numbers, i know, i know, that's no help whatsoever lol.

I was still logged into windows and still able to use everything as normal until i restarted the PC as It said i needed to restart the pc which is what i did and that's when i got the boot error message 'A disk read error occurred press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart' after the BIOS selection screen (i.e press F12 to enter bla bla bla).

I looked for a possible solution online which is when i found the below information:

Boot from Windows installation media into command prompt mode.
Execute these and show command output
(upload screenshot to imgur.com and post link)

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
list volume


If you have more than one disk, then also list partitions of remaining disks
select disk 1
list partition
select disk 2
list partition


Now when i type that in command prompt using a recovery media usb so i can access Command Prompt i can see the partitions on my SSD however i cant boot into windows. This is a link to pic of my results using the above commands:

View: https://imgur.com/a/DVkUswW



Let me know if you need any further in for etc,

Thanks in advance

Mark
 
Solution
Screenshots below:
Bootloader partition is too small. Only 50MB. Recommended size is 350MB - 500MB.
bcdboot command is failing because of this.
You'll have to create a new bootloader.
Execute following and show screenshot.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately.
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3
shrink desired=500
create partition primary size=500
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /v

Cj-tech

Admirable
Jan 27, 2021
534
67
8,940
Hi All,

I hope you can help me, so i have a custom built gaming pc i had built when i was at university in 2020 and i will list the specs i remember or can see as i now do not have access to my uni email account where i had the email with the full specs in.

I have:

Windows 10 Home operating system
Gigabyte H310M S2H 2.0 Motherboard
Intel i5 Processor
32GB DDR4 Ram
512GB Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSD
Gigabyte GeForce® GTX 1660 OC 6G Graphics Card
500w PSU (I think its 500w or maybe 550w??)

So what i was trying to do was get my PC ready so i could upgrade to Windows 11, and to do that i had to change two main things, with the first being to enable TPM which i did successfully within BIOS by enabling Intel platform trust technology (PPT). After this i needed to do the mbr2gpt convert so as to enable secure boot, which i used available software which claims to be able to do the convert whilst still logged into windows 10. Before attempting the convert i deleted the recovery partition as you cannot do the convert if you have more than 3 separate partitions shown in Disk Management Console. I started the convert but got an error message which i cannot remember what it said but I'm sure it was an exceptional error code with lots of numbers, i know, i know, that's no help whatsoever lol.

I was still logged into windows and still able to use everything as normal until i restarted the PC as It said i needed to restart the pc which is what i did and that's when i got the boot error message 'A disk read error occurred press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart' after the BIOS selection screen (i.e press F12 to enter bla bla bla).

I looked for a possible solution online which is when i found the below information:

Boot from Windows installation media into command prompt mode.
Execute these and show command output
(upload screenshot to imgur.com and post link)

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
list volume


If you have more than one disk, then also list partitions of remaining disks
select disk 1
list partition
select disk 2
list partition


Now when i type that in command prompt using a recovery media usb so i can access Command Prompt i can see the partitions on my SSD however i cant boot into windows. This is a link to pic of my results using the above commands:

View: https://imgur.com/a/DVkUswW



Let me know if you need any further in for etc,

Thanks in advance

Mark
What software did you use? Sounds like it pretty much destroyed your operating system. Downloading random software from the internet is not a good idea. Since you didn’t mention the name, I assume it’s not something commonly used. For security reasons, I’d do a clean install of Windows 11.
 
Nov 30, 2022
40
0
30
What software did you use? Sounds like it pretty much destroyed your operating system. Downloading random software from the internet is not a good idea. Since you didn’t mention the name, I assume it’s not something commonly used. For security reasons, I’d do a clean install of Windows 11.

its a well known application, i will try and hunt out the one i used, the thing is i know everything is still there as its only booting to windows which is the issue, i think if i can get it to boot then the rest is still there on the SSD because i was using everything fine until i decided to restart the PC then the boot issue appeared
 
Nov 30, 2022
40
0
30
when i use the above commands in command prompt it can see the ssd drive with the 3 partitions still, it just doesnt boot to it, there must be a way to make it boot if it can still see the different partitions etc surely?
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
This has already become a mess; once a process like this has failed and you've done a bunch of other stuff, it becomes a nightmare quickly. Wipe the drive, make a fresh installation of Windows, and restore the data you need on this PC from one of your backups.
 
Last edited:
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Nov 30, 2022
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This has already become a mess; once a process like this has failed and you've done a bunch of other stuff, it becomes a nightmare quickly. Wipe the drive, make a fresh installation of Windows, and restore the data you need on this PC from one of your backups.

I unfortunately don't have a backup so is there anyway I can try to access the ssd via another device to transfer anything I had on there before doing a fresh Windows install. Could I try and use some kind of recovery software to access any files etc and transfer them to my laptop etc?
 
Nov 30, 2022
40
0
30
Would anyone know anything I could try to make it boot properly as I know all the files are still on the SSD. Any way of repairing the windows startup on there, there must be something I can try. Sorry I'm getting a bit desperate now lol. TIA
 

Richj444

Prominent
May 25, 2022
119
20
595
I unfortunately don't have a backup so is there anyway I can try to access the ssd via another device to transfer anything I had on there before doing a fresh Windows install. Could I try and use some kind of recovery software to access any files etc and transfer them to my laptop etc?
You can remove the SSD and install it into an external USB closure, then connect that to your laptop and transfer what's needed. Something like this for example:
Amazon.com: SABRENT USB 3.2 Type-C Tool-Free Enclosure for M.2 PCIe NVMe and SATA SSDs (EC-SNVE) : Electronics
 
that's when i got the boot error message 'A disk read error occurred press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart' after the BIOS selection screen (i.e press F12 to enter bla bla bla).
Run chkdsk on all partitions
chkdsk c: /f
chkdsk d: /f
chkdsk e: /f
Would anyone know anything I could try to make it boot properly as I know all the files are still on the SSD. Any way of repairing the windows startup on there, there must be something I can try. Sorry I'm getting a bit desperate now lol. TIA
Try converting with mbr2gpt. Validate first.
mbr2gpt /validate /disk:0
If validation is successful, then proceed with conversion.
mbr2gpt /convert /disk:0
Show screenshots.
 
Screenshots below:
Bootloader partition is too small. Only 50MB. Recommended size is 350MB - 500MB.
bcdboot command is failing because of this.
You'll have to create a new bootloader.
Execute following and show screenshot.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately.
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3
shrink desired=500
create partition primary size=500
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /v
 
Solution
Nov 30, 2022
40
0
30
Bootloader partition is too small. Only 50MB. Recommended size is 350MB - 500MB.
bcdboot command is failing because of this.
You'll have to create a new bootloader.
Execute following and show screenshot.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately.
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 3
shrink desired=500
create partition primary size=500
format fs=ntfs quick
active
assign letter=H
exit
bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /v

View: https://imgur.com/a/fgZsHUH
 
Noticed in bcdboot command output - it referenced files for UEFI boot.
But your disk is MBR (conversion to GPT failed/didn't work properly).
Execute to check drive letters.
diskpart
list disk
list volume


Note drive letter for windows OS partition and 500MB bootloader.
I'm assuming E: - windows OS partition and H: - bootloader partition.
Change drive letters in bcdboot command , if drive letters are different.
Execute following and show output.

bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /f BIOS /v
 
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Reactions: MarkyGee84
Nov 30, 2022
40
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Noticed in bcdboot command output - it referenced files for UEFI boot.
But your disk is MBR (conversion to GPT failed/didn't work properly).
Execute to check drive letters.
diskpart
list disk
list volume


Note drive letter for windows OS partition and 500MB bootloader.
I'm assuming E: - windows OS partition and H: - bootloader partition.
Change drive letters in bcdboot command , if drive letters are different.
Execute following and show output.

bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /f BIOS /v

System Rese is D
windows OS partition is E
Data partition is F
Bootloader partition is C
Recovery is G (My USB stick)
 
Nov 30, 2022
40
0
30
Noticed in bcdboot command output - it referenced files for UEFI boot.
But your disk is MBR (conversion to GPT failed/didn't work properly).
Execute to check drive letters.
diskpart
list disk
list volume


Note drive letter for windows OS partition and 500MB bootloader.
I'm assuming E: - windows OS partition and H: - bootloader partition.
Change drive letters in bcdboot command , if drive letters are different.
Execute following and show output.

bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /f BIOS /v

View: https://imgur.com/a/1dslsj7
 
Nov 30, 2022
40
0
30
Noticed in bcdboot command output - it referenced files for UEFI boot.
But your disk is MBR (conversion to GPT failed/didn't work properly).
Execute to check drive letters.
diskpart
list disk
list volume


Note drive letter for windows OS partition and 500MB bootloader.
I'm assuming E: - windows OS partition and H: - bootloader partition.
Change drive letters in bcdboot command , if drive letters are different.
Execute following and show output.

bcdboot E:\windows /s H: /f BIOS /v

YOUR AN ABSOLUTE LEGEND !!!!

Thankyou so much, how can i buy you a drink buddy. OMG seriously your a proper legend!!

View: https://imgur.com/a/FQFX8MK