Another one trying to upgrade to Win11

Hi, it's great you're using disk imaging. Given that, you should always be able to recover. However, two observations:

a. For your own security (and possibly sanity!) - keep your image files on external removable storage, and disconnect that when not being used for imaging. That way no chance of
- it being deleted/corrupted by anything you do
Reduced chance of if being affected by viruses or ransomware
Reduced chance of losing all if your PC was stolen
Little chance of your image files being lost if there was some dramatic power failure
(You may wish to keep two copies so one is always unaffected if critical).

b. What have you imaged? You should ensure that at least all partitions comprising your O/S are imaged- not just C: - and as you're converting C: to GPT, then all partitions on it (if there are more) are imaged.

I would also run a disk check before starting- e.g. Hard Disk Sentinel - excellent - applies to SSDs too.

I assume you've checked your PC is compatible with Win 11...

Given it's criticality, I would make arrangements such that you can rapidly revert to '10 should you upgrade successfully, but not initially be happy with the outcome for some reason and need time.

That's another reason for cloning your existing system before you start, as Selden has suggested below.

Thus you could swap between '10 and '11 as you will by swapping system disks. Belt and braces...

Have you considered using a second system disk for your upgrade attempts?

In other words:
1. Clone your current system disk onto a replacement using your favorite Backup software. (Macrium Reflect is popular here.)
2. Unplug your current system disk and put it somewhere safe.
3. Connect the clone and boot from it
4. Try the various upgrade requirements.

When things fail or you get tired of fighting with it, you can remove the replacement disk, plug your original system disk back in and be up and running immediately.

Creating an image backup file, booting from a Macrium recovery USB thumb drive (or whatever backup product you're using) and restoring from the backup file to the replacement drive is another option. That might make it easier to try several different failing upgrade paths while your known-working system disk is in no danger of being damaged.

maarkr said:

I may be pathetic, but I really don't want my current Win10v19043.1348 drive screwed up trying to upgrade to Win11....
So I have a Macrium Win Rescue USB and a Win 10 install USB, and have an image on my D drive. I went into my BIOS and tried to change the CSM to get Secure Boot, but it turns out my boot drive is MBR. It did say it was UEFI so I thought I would be all set. Anyway, reading about getting to GPT, I could try mbr2gpt or MiniTool (but the new version charges for doing that but I have the v9 installed which is supposedly free).....

As you already have a Macrium system image, it is relatively easy to convert from a Legacy/MBR install to a UEFI/GPT one without loosing your installed apps and data. No need for mbr2gpt, just clean install in UEFI/GPT mode then restore your C: drive from the system image over the one created by the clean install.

Bree said:

I used the second method NavyLCDR describes to restore a Macrium image of a Legacy/MBR W10 machine to a new UEFI/GPT machine. I first clean installed the same version of W10 (21H1) on the new machine as a UEFI install, then restored just the C: Windows partition from the image of the old Legacy/MBR machine as a replacement for the newly created C: partition. I then ran the Reflect recovery USB's 'Fix Windows boot problems' tool to create the correct BCD entry.

How to restore W10 backup from old machine to a new machine

tried to validate it but got 'Disk layout validation failed for disk 0'
I ran DiskPart and confirmed that the disk is indeed 0 and the same size, etc as the Disk Mgmt pic
searching for info, I found several sites that stated that I need to shrink the size of the drive so there's room for a partition at the end for backup GPT entries... I shrank the volume in Disk Mgmt by 500Mb and validation completed successfully.

Now if the convert works the same then I should be in business, then to reboot and switch the firmware to boot to UEFI mode.
Too much stress in one day, lol.
and will the Intel PTT option in the Gigabyte BIOS (or is it no longer called BIOS, using UEFI) fit the bill for the TPM requirement?

If you feel that strongly about keeping W10, and all your software, you should leave your system alone. There`s no reason for you to update it to W11 at this time.

2 quick questions.

1) Why do Disks 1 and 2 have a Page File on them ?
2) Why is Disk 3 marked Active ?

Is that the external drive ?