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change BIOS legacy mode to UEFI without losing OS

need to change some laptops from Legacy to UEFI without losing the OS, are there any free partition manager that you would recommend?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

John

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SOLUTION

noxcho

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IT Guy

ASKER

i do need to change on some laptops - issue i have is all laptops are encrypted via Microsoft Bit locker however the laptops asks for a bit locker key after every reboot. Microsoft suggested i make the change to UEFI

John

Did you encrypt with Bit Locker before installing the OS?

Perhaps back up one machine and try changing the BIOS to see it if works. I have not converted an encrypted drive.

IT Guy

ASKER

i tried many things but nothing helped so i opened a ticket with microsoft and this is their recommendation

SOLUTION

Ramin

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John

If you do a fresh install, you may want to change the BIOS, encrypt the drive and then install the OS after. Make sure the drives are NOT Opal drives.

SOLUTION

arnold

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noxcho

There is a tool which can help you here. But Bitlocker must be disabled before you perform the operation.
Try with Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15: https://www.paragon-software.com/home/hdm-personal/features.html
It has on it Recovery CD a feature called EFI FixUp which is designed to make the system boot from GPT drive.
Or reinstall the OS on the laptops one by one after switching the BIOS to UEFI mode.

arnold

Clone/backup restore.
Test first, make sure external bitlocker recovery exists and works.

Natty Greg

If you upgrade the software ---- then it might or might not trigger the change in bios which would save you time, if not you will have to redo each and change the nios.

John

@NxJNY - Thanks and I was happy to help