Trouble installing Win 10 64 bit, MBR/BIOS. Partition needs to be GRT

Megahertz said:

It did an almost clean install. On the Win 10 64 bits install there is no traces of the previous Win 10 32 Bits, only the Windows.old folder with all Win 10 32 bits files and folders.
And you want you can roll back to the Win 10 32 bits installation.

Thank you for taking the time to provide an example!

Megahertz said:

NavyLCDR, how a super star Guru like you be so WRONG.

What I wrote works as I described.
- If you have a Windows 10 32 bits installed as Legacy-MBR and you boot the Windows 10 64 bits installation drive as Legacy, and choose to install on same partition of the Windows 10 32 bits, a Windows.old folder will be created with all Windows 10 32 bits folders.
I confess that your affirmation that I was wrong put myself in doubt.
So I downloaded a Win 10 1909 32 bits iso and made a USB legacy boot able drive.
I installed Win 10 1909 32 bits on a spare drive and then I've installed Win 10 2004 64 Bits.
Attachment 283343

It did created a Windows.old folder as OP wanted (See post #5).
All this effort just to prove myself (and to others here) that I was right (and you Wrong).
Attachment 283344
I've seen that you frequently quote others post and say "You're wrong".
Not very polite to your colleagues at the Forum, and sometimes, not always, you're the wrong person.

Hi Megahertz, you are saying or should I say have proven that I could upgrade to Win 10 64 bit on to an MBR Legacy drive with Win 10 32 bit already installed and have a Windows.old folder created while doing so? I think I still need to do something different because if I attempt to do that now as my current system and drive is configured I get the message that I can only install onto a GRT partition. I just can't seem to keep straight in my mind what it is that I'm missing. I still believe there are 2 different issues with my system. I believe my SSD drive is partitioned in a way that is conflicting with how my bios is configured and how I'm booting into the OS which is preventing me from installing the Win 10 64 bit version. If that makes any sense.

When you first turn on the computer, you need to enter the boot override menu. It is usually with the F12 or F8 key repeatedly pressed right away as soon as the first manufacturer's logo appears. In the boot override menu, you should see two entries for the USB flash drive to boot from. One will probably say UEFI in front of not. You do not want that one. You want the boot entry that only has the flash drive itself listed, without UEFI. That will boot your flash drive in legacy BIOS (CSM) mode and let you do the custom install to the MBR partitioned drive.

Also, @rogertsch, I notice you are using Windows 10 Enterprise. How is your Windows 10 Enterprise activated?

NavyLCDR said:

When you first turn on the computer, you need to enter the boot override menu. It is usually with the F12 or F8 key repeatedly pressed right away as soon as the first manufacturer's logo appears. In the boot override menu, you should see two entries for the USB flash drive to boot from. One will probably say UEFI in front of not. You do not want that one. You want the boot entry that only has the flash drive itself listed, without UEFI. That will boot your flash drive in legacy BIOS (CSM) mode and let you do the custom install to the MBR partitioned drive.

Also, @rogertsch, I notice you are using Windows 10 Enterprise. How is your Windows 10 Enterprise activated?

My Win 10 64 bit install / Setup is on a DVD drive, so I will be booting from there. I suppose I should do the same as you mentioned but for the DVD drive, it should be set to boot Legacy Rom Bios. Correct??? I have two oppositions ...Legacy Rom bios and UFI compatible Rom ...is what I believe it says.

Yes, try legacy.

rogertsch
For what I see from post #1, you have a windows 32 bits installed as Legacy-MBR and you are booting the installation drive as UEFI. When you try to install as UEFI on a MBR drive you get the message “Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is not of the GPT partition style”.
To install Win 10 64bits on the MBR drive and create the Windows.old folder, you must boot the installation drive as Legacy, not UEFI.


Navy asked how did you activate the Win 10 enterprise edition?

rogertsch said:

The problem I'm having is that I receive the error message: “Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is not of the GPT partition style”, when trying to install Windows 10 64 bit onto the current Windows 10 32 bit system.

The current state of the drive I want to install to is...

DISKPART> detail disk

Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB
Disk ID: A956F8A1
Type : SATA
Status : Online
Path : 2
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1F02)#ATA(C02T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : Yes
Pagefile Disk : Yes
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : Yes
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 2 C Samsung SSD NTFS Partition 796 GB Healthy System

My System Info.
OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Enterprise
Version 10.0.18363 Build 18363
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name ROGERPC-V6QO2A4
System Manufacturer System manufacturer
System Model System Product Name
System Type X86-based PC
System SKU SKU
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 4102, 9/9/2013
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode Legacy
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASUSTeK Computer INC.
BaseBoard Product P8Z68-V LE
BaseBoard Version Rev X.0x
Platform Role Desktop
Secure Boot State Unsupported
PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume4
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.18362.752"
User Name ROGERPC-V6QO2A4\roger
Time Zone Mountain Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 3.48 GB
Available Physical Memory 433 MB
Total Virtual Memory 7.73 GB
Available Virtual Memory 2.49 GB
Page File Space 4.25 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Not enabled
Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, TPM is not usable
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware No
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

SOLVED...And thanks to everyone who had some input. What I ended up doing was, I used Rufus to make changes to the USB media creation tool with Win 10 Enterprise 64 edition, changed parameters to install as MBR I think that was the only change I made. What I ended up with was Win 10 Enterprise 64 edition installed on my SSD over top of the existing Win 10 Enterprise 32 bit edition, while also creating a Windows.old folder containing the Win 10 Enterprise 32 bit edition personal files and folders, exactly what I wanted. So, I'm happy with the way things turned out. Sorry that I might have not have explained exactly what steps I took while using the Rufus program, but it was pretty straight forward and plain to see what options I must take in the program to make a successful install. Rufus was the main factor in doing a successful install.

Glad you did the way you want it.

I never use Rufus or other tool. Just some Diskpart commands and copy and paste.
Manually create Bootable Windows 10 USB for Legacy BIOS and UEFI in Command Prompt (thanks to Brink)