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Converting MBR to GBP on a non-bootable drive

bigeddie88bigeddie88
edited March 2016 in AOMEI Products Support

Greetings,


I want to extend the 3rd disk (Disk 2) to more than 2TB but the disk is set as MBR.  Right now I have a 2TB primary partition and have 3TB of unallocated space.  The SQL information is on this drive and is consistently growing.  I want to convert Disk 2 to GBT to get rid of the 2TB cap.  All drives C:, D: and E: are on an array.  C: = 100 GB, D: = 200 and E:= 2TB. I added 3 more drives to the array hence the 3TB of unallocated space.  I will be leaving drive C: (Disk 0) and D: (Disk 1) as MBR.  


So once I use the AOMEI partition software to make Disk 2 as GPT, will I still be able to boot without having to go to the BIOS and change it to UEFI?  I plan on doing a backup on the SQL information first before doing the conversion just in case. 


Thanks. 

Comments

  • bigeddie88bigeddie88

    By the way this is on a Windows 2008 R2 server.  Can I use the lite version to do this?

  • Peter13febPeter13feb
    edited March 2016

    first of all you cannot convert your computer from BIOS firmware to UEFI firmware, usually, I have not heard of this (will you reflash the mother board?, exchange the MB)

    second of all in Windows Disk Management there is a convert from MBR to GPT command. If this allows you to convert your disk2 all will be fine, in my opinion.

    What do you mean by SQL information, this non-technical (manager language) term not heard of. And thirdly MBR/GPT partitioning scheme is usually not relevant to SQL or any database, they are usually happy with any partition.

  • bigeddie88bigeddie88

    Converting bios?  I'm talking more of changing the boot mode in bios to UEFI since its already in Legacy bios mode.


    Since the SQL "database" is on disk2, WDM does not give me the option to convert from MBR to GPT.  I would have the wipe disk 2 in order to see that option.  So that is why I may use AOMEI partition to do the conversion without losing any data.  

  • apfcclydeapfcclyde

    Yes you can convert from MBR to GPT without losing data using AOMEI. I did just that last nite, converting a RAID 5 volume from 2tb to 3tb by changing it from MBR to GPT. Took all of 2 minutes.No data lost. You then have to extend the partition since changing from MBR to GPT will create an additional unformatted partition on the drive. Again, simple wit AOMEI.

  • bigeddie88bigeddie88

    Thanks for sharing your experience apfcclyde.  I plan on doing this next week and will write up an update once I have completed the conversion.

  • bigeddie88bigeddie88

    Completed the conversion using the aomei partition lite and took less than 30 seconds to finish.  Once that was done I went into windows disk management and was able to extend the logical partition past the 2 TB limit.  No data loss at all.  Worked like a charm!  Thanks aomei.

  • adminadmin

    Thanks for all your guys.image

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