Convert drive from GPT to MBR without command prompt and/or losing data?

[Deleted User]

Hello A friend of mine has windows 10 Pro installed on his machine and had the primary partition split so that he could install windows 7. When he told me about this, i immediately went to his house and lended him my windows 7 bootable usb. However, the pc refused to boot the usb in UEFI mode (even with the external boot enable and boot order changed), so we changed to the only other mode available (legacy boot mode) and the pc then booted from the pen drive. So we formatted the allocated space, but the installer said that we could not install windows 7 on it because the drive was gpt, and not mbr. So I searched how to change this, and I found that you can either use diskpart in command prompt (data loss) or the AOEMI/EaseUS tools for free (no data loss). These tool’s respective “demos” will refuse to change from gpt to mbr unless I buy the pro editions. Is there a freeware to do this actually for FREE? Or will he have his data lost? Thanks!

 

[Hayato213]

Make life easier, just use a second drive, second option, I believe you could make a gpt compatible windows 7 installer using rufus.

 

[Joom]

I've never heard of changing the partition table scheme without losing data. You can do it easily and for free with the GParted live distribution, but it will wipe the entire drive.

 

[tech3475]

Windows 7 can support UEFI, you may need to create a UEFI compatible USB install.

Maybe try Rufus with the original ISO.

 

[Originality]

It’s easy to convert MBR to GPT without data loss via command prompt, however the reverse requires cleaning the drive first.

The tools want you to pay because instead of a simple conversion, it’s doing a live translation which is more complicated. It’s better just to either install W7 on another drive, or backup to a second drive (internal or external) then wipe and format. That or get the customised version of W7 for GPT support.