Migrating to new pc and virtualize old pc

jimbo45 said:

Any boot problems --you don't need VIboot or Macrium's fix boot feature.

Simply decide on which HDD is your boot device and ensure it has an EFI partition of at least 100 MB

Boot any windows device that can start in the command line -- can be even old windows iso, Macrium stand alone or whatever

then get into Diskpart to assign the 100mb efi partition as letter "S" say.
your Windows install is say on disk W
your command line is on disk X

exit partition manager

now cd w:\windows\system32

w:
bcdboot w:\windows /s S: /f UEFI

do this for all windows installs you need to -- simply have ONE single bootable disk with ONE EFI file -- then you'll get the standard boot menu if you've several Windows installs -- this also will work on a VM too and also if your windows installs are via vhdx files.

Attachment 373169

All this is "Bog standard" windows these days. No need for 3rd party paid tools to accomplish this - and you can even restore a VM image to "Real" or a "Real image" to a VM via standard imaging tools (GPARTED, Macrium Free, etc).

Don't pay for stuff when you don't have to and the free methods are simple.

With VM's though remember if copying or moving to copy the GUUID or windows will probably think its a new machine and want activation.

Cheers
jimbo

thanks Jimbo, I see that there are many things I could need I just don't understand, could you tell me better how to do it? Can you explain to me step by step what I should do and what are they for?

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cereberus said:

Agreed.

Having said that I did stupidly delete a data partition using diskpart (not a good idea to use diskpart after a few bevvies lol).

Although data was backed up, I recovered partition in seconds with paid version (actually on a 1 year free trial) of Easeus Partition Master.

I am getting a bit annoyed with current trend to make a tool free for a while, and when established start to remove key features so you have to buy paid version to get features back again (or stick with old versions).

I hope good old Macrium Reflect does not start to play that game. It would not affect me as I have paid for licences and do not regret a penny.

In the end, users should do their homework and they can ask here for opinions on whether a paid version is worth it.

guys I don't follow you, you talk to each other but I can't solve my problem, one step at a time, anyway thanks