Clone a Windows Installation to a 3TB Hard Drive; MBR to GPT

Posted by DanBlakemore on Super User See other posts from Super User or by DanBlakemore
Published on 2012-07-01T09:52:49Z Indexed on 2012/07/04 9:19 UTC
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Filed under:

windows-7

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hard-drive

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partitioning

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mbr

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gpt

I have Windows 7 Professional 64-bit installed on my desktop. Unfortunately for me and my wallet my hard drive is failing. I have purchased a 3TB hard drive as a replacement for my current 2TB drive. I would like to avoid as much hassle as possible in moving to this new drive so I would like to copy my current partition to the new drive using Gparted. The problem is that I suspect that my current partition is MBR, and I need GPT on my new drive since it is 3TB.

Can I simply copy the MBR partition onto the new disk and then convert it to GPT after the fact (can you even convert the type of a partition)?

Or would I need to somehow copy the contents of the partition into a GPT partition on the new drive?

How do I go about making this transistion?

Also, are there any issues I should be wary of booting to a GPT partition? If it matters, my motherboard is 1 year old as of May, 2012.

Edit: My motherboard is 1 day old. My old one does not have UEFI compatibility, so I decided to make an upgrade to Intel today given that I would need a UEFI motherboard to use my new HDD.

How much can I use a dying hard drive (bad sectors according to Hitachi Drive Fitness Test)?
I have assumed not at all, to be safe.

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