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how to make a gpt disk a mbr?

I had a laptop disk that got corrupt, I tried to clone it to a new laptop HDD but something happen and the new drive is GPT . As such vista will not reinstall to a gpt.
can anyone help me?

rindi

Connect it to another PC as a 2nd disk and in diskmanagement under windows change it to GPT. This will erase all data.

As far as I know there are some 3rd party tools that can convert from/to GPT without data loss, but I haven't tried them, and they aren't free.

catlady7310

ASKER

I put it in a USB enclosure and windows does not allow me to change the drive from
a GUID Partition Table to a MBR

I thought I was decent where hardware was concerned but this has really humbled me.

noxcho

You need first to delete all partitions from this drive. Otherwise it will not let you convert the drive. In other words it must be completely empty.

catlady7310

ASKER

It had 4 partitions on it and I have deleted 3. it will not let me delete the last one it is an EFI file system partition.
it will not let me delete it.

rindi

Then boot the PC using GParted, and use that utility to clear all partitions and create an MBR disk. One thing though, if the disk is larger than 2TB, you will only be able to use up to 2TB if you change it to an MBR disk.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=gparted

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noxcho

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catlady7310

ASKER

never knew this command existed. great solution and really good reference for documentation.
Vista is not installing

thanks so much

catlady7310

ASKER

should have been Vista isNOW installing.

Sorry