Having trouble preparing the motherboard for a Windows 11 upgrade
Having trouble preparing the motherboard for a Windows 11 upgrade
Asking this question here as well as on another site, as I've exhausted a bunch of the other possibilities.
Yes, I understand I missed the deadline. I'd put it off during the summer, & some personal emergencies took a bit of precedence. My laptop converted just fine, but had to change some BIOS settings on my desktop.
Which is where I'm running into problems.
System information:
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X
Motherboard: ASUS PRIME X570-P
BIOS: v. 3001
RAM: 16GB
Drive setup:
Primary (C
: 256GB SSD
Secondary #1: 4TB HDD
Secondary #2: 1TB HDD
Secondary #3: 1TB HDD
I've already verified & confirmed that TPM 2.0 is enabled in the BIOS. My issue is that, when I first set up this machine some years back (was originally a Windows 7 machine, then upgraded for free to Win10), I set up the boot SSD as an MBR drive...& Secure BIOS needs to be GPT.
I have attempted to run the MBR2GPT.exe tool multiple times, & keep being told "Cannot find room for the EFI system partition" and "MBR2GPT: Conversion Failed".
Without the conversion to GPT file format, I can't install Win11. Tried multiple times, & I'm not comfortable with any of the so-called 'registry hacks' that are supposed to fool the installer (particularly since they focus on the TPM portion, which isn't a problem).
I do not want to do a "clean" install, because I don't need to...& shouldn't need to when my laptop didn't need one.
I've seen some sites that
might
indicate that it's the "System Reserved" and "Recovery Partition" portions of Disk 0 (the SSD). I'm just worried because I don't think I ever made a full ISO copy of the Win10 installation disk (just
maybe
have the original Win7 DVD somewhere), so I don't want to ruin anything on the SSD that will make my PC unbootable. So do I just remove those partitions? Or do I need to do something else?
Forum won't let me upload screenshots, so as an FYI my Disk 0 shows 98MB for the "System Reserved" portion, 231.96GB for the C: drive, & 851MB for the Recovery Partition. Only 1 of those is a visible drive in Windows, obviously.
You can increase the size of the EFI partition slightly using a disk management tool. I used Disk Genius – it doesn’t require a massive space, and the default is quite small. I’m not sure exactly what I did, but I resized it to 500mb, which is more than enough. However, doing that would mean removing 500mb from the main partition, so you’d need some free space on your Windows partition to make room.
You might try using DiskPart’s command line, but it’s not beginner-friendly. Instead, use Disk Genius GUI to create a bootable USB drive that runs the utility. Just avoid doing this randomly, as changing partitions can cause problems. In the worst case, you might have to reinstall Windows and lose all your data and saved logins. This is simple only if you’re used to resizing partitions since MS-DOS days.
Maybe Disk Genius can adjust the partition sizes without needing precise measurements. I don’t think that’s what I did—I definitely thought making the EFI partition too small—but in reality, once you upgrade to Windows 11, you might prefer a clean install. It’s wise to have a backup routine for important data, even if it’s just noting login details and keeping track of account credentials you created.
For Windows 10, there are 10 FAQs and a clean installation guide (if needed). For Windows 11, the process is similar. After converting to GPT, make sure to switch off CSM mode in BIOS and set it to disabled. This enables UEFI, which is necessary for secure boot compatibility.
The Windows 10 installer decides which partition scheme to use during setup. If CSM is active, it automatically selects the MBR scheme, which explains why you have it now. But if CSM is turned off, it chooses GPT and installs silently without notifying users. This can become noticeable when upgrading to Windows 11.
If you’re unsure about resizing partitions, consider a clean install with CSM disabled. This will automatically adjust the partitions to the correct sizes. For a full reset, you’ll need to delete all partitions from the drive first.
For safety and future sustainability, I suggest you duplicate your 256GB SSD to a fresh 1TB SSD. Keep the original as a reserve.
Following the cloning process, you should update the MBR on the new 1TB SSD (the original remains secure as a backup).
This approach was used during my transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11. 1TB SSDs are affordable now and as time passes, 256GB capacity will increasingly become a constraint.