Booting UEFI and GPT on p6-2155a with Foxconn 2ADA mboard

[PB442]

Hi.  I have a P6-2155a bought 11 years ago. It has the original processor - an Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40GHz - and Foxconn 2ADA motherboard. It now also has 16.0 GB DDR3-1600 RAM, an upgraded power supply, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and a Crucial 4TB SSD.  It's running Windows 10 Home 64 bit. I gritted my teeth some years ago and upgraded the bios to 8.17 (JOS_817.rom issued in 2013), I think it was to run a previous NVIDIA card at the time.   

It is booting via legacy (ie BIOS) and if possible I would like to swap to UEFI and GPT to make full use of the space on the SSD. Using legacy BIOS means I am limited to 4 partitions and a maximum of 2.2 TB, so there's a fair bit of the SSD unusable - about 1.64 TB in practice.

Most importantly, I do not know if booting via UEFI rather than BIOS  would succeed given the old motherboard.  So that is my first question, can the motherboard work under UEFI?  Has anyone got a working PC using UEFI with a Foxconn 2ADA motherboard? Preferably in an HP computer that previously used AMI BIOS.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.  

[Prométhée]

hi

there are several user returns, even if not the same computer, from the moment you have the uefi bios, this should not be a problem

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Boot-and-Lockup/convert-BIOS-MBR-to-UEFI-GPT/m-p/7175644

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Boot-and-Lockup/Switch-from-Legacy-BIOS-to-UEFI-MBR-to-GPT/m-p...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-System-and-Recovery/Enable-uefi-boot-and-use-GPT-fi...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=false&q...

[PB442]

Thanks.  I particularly found the link to Julia Tech Spot video helpful. 

But when I ran: mbr2gpt /validate /disk:0 /allowFullOS

I got an error message 

MBR2GPT: Attempting to validate disk 0
MBR2GPT: Retrieving layout of disk
MBR2GPT: Validating layout, disk sector size is: 512 bytes
Cannot find OS partition(s) for disk 0

So I tried using AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro to convert the disk.  It also gave an error code 215  which suggest the disk is too fragmented and should be defragged. But being a SSD, defragmentation shouldn't apply.  So I assume the issue is something to do with partition size and reserve space as the second part of the error explanation is "...or reserve free space of 2GB or more for the partition, and retry".   

The disk as partitioned under MBR has:
- a 100MB partition 😧 NTFS 512 B/sector \Device\HarddiskVolume1  used 17.88MB free 82.11MB
- a 2TB partition C: OS NTFS 512 B/sector \Device\HarddiskVolume2 used 1.80TB free 207.57GB
- a 576MB partition *:   NTFS 512 B/sector \Device\HarddiskVolume3 used 439.57MB free 136.43MB

[PB442]

emoji should be D :  converted drive designation to emoji when I posted 😞

[Prométhée]

sorry, all I could tell you is only theoretical, because never had to try
I have not re-read the links, but several solutions seem to be proposed.?
if the direct conversion is not possible, the best would be to save the data, see how to make a complete ghost of the ssd, just in case ..
and start again with a complete installation, as explained in one of the links

I don't speak English, so I don't understand everything that is said, and a bit long, but

take a look, maybe :

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-10/mbr2gpt-disk-layout-validation-failed/m-p/175166/p...

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-10/mbr2gpt-disk-layout-validation-failed/m-p/175166

[PB442]

Thanks for your efforts, especially in another language than you own.  

I have tracked down from the logs that mgr2gpt fails when it cannot get volume name for the recovery boot entry.

(NB: I have not used the real object ID string below)

2023-01-08 14:56:07, Info BCD: Opening object {f7942351-391b-12e2-af13-ce8d487bae14}
2023-01-08 14:56:07, Error GetOSDeviceVolume: Cannot get device data for entry. Error: 0xC0000024[gle=0xc0000024]
2023-01-08 14:56:07, Error FindOSPartitions: Cannot get volume name for the recovery boot entry. Error: 0xC0000024[gle=0xc0000024]
2023-01-08 14:56:07, Error Cannot find OS partition(s) for disk 0[gle=0xc0000024]

[Prométhée]

sorry i couldn't help you more than that
you saw the two links, I understood that some with the same type of problem had succeeded?

[PB442]

Thank you. I went through all 5 pages.  The problems in the thread varied, including:

- having too many partitions eg 4 instead of max of three (I have only three - all primary)

- having the OS on another disk to the MBR (all mine are on one disk - disk 0)

- having  logical partition (all mine are primary) 

- having no space at the end of the disk  (I have 1.64TB unallocated at the end of the disk)

- one fellow had the same error as me Stefan_Mocellin - regarding a recovery partition but I don't think his issue was solved he left the thread at page 3 with his problem unresolved.

[Prométhée]

@Paul_Tikkanen  could be able to help you, he speaks English

if not, try full install

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @PB442 

I read your post yesterday but declined to answer because your PC is on the fringe of when UEFI BIOS's were incorporated into HP consumer-class PC's, and only you know or can check if it has a UEFI BIOS.

As Prométhée indicated, if your PC indeed has a UEFI BIOS then you should be able to install W10 in (U)EFI mode, but you have to be willing to reinstall all of your programs and files.

So, back those up first and have your program installation files/disks ready.

Before trying to install W10 in EFI mode you may want to use a free disk imaging utility such as Macrium Reflect to create a system image, store it on a portable hard drive, and make a bootable recovery drive that you access the system image with.

You want the software on the left side of the page under the 'Backup at Home' section.

Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free Trial

That way if for some reason things go wrong, you can go back to your current situation in a short time.

Check your PC's BIOS and see if there are two sets of bootable devices:  Legacy and EFI...might also be labeled UEFI.

If you don't see two sets of boot options, then your PC does not have a UEFI BIOS, and you cannot install Windows in UEFI mode.

HP PCs - Configuring the boot order in the system BIOS | HP® Customer Support

If you see two sets of bootable devices (Legacy and UEFI), here is how I installed W10 in EFI mode on a HP 8200 Elite CMT which was the first business desktop in the model series that had a UEFI BIOS.  It was manufactured in 2011.

Download the W10 64-bit ISO file using the media creation tool from the link below.   Don't make the bootable USB flash drive.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

After you download the ISO file, use the free Rufus utility from the link below to create the bootable USB installation media.

I use the Portable option.

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

When you run Rufus, set it up like you see in the example on the above website.

Standard Windows installation, GPT partition Scheme, BIOS UEFI (Non CSM).

Select the W10 ISO file you downloaded and build the bootable W10 UEFI installation flash drive.

When that is completed, boot from it by selecting the F9 boot options menu.

You may first have to press/tap the ESC key first to get the complete menu of options.

You should see the Rufus-created W10 installation flash drive under the UEFI boot sources list.

Select the flash drive and press the Enter key and the PC should boot from the flash drive and install W10 in EFI mode.

You should now see that your SSD is using the maximum allowable space since W10 is installed in GPT and not MBR.