One for the tech heads-Installing UEFI BIOS + disk MBR-GPT

[Whoozit]

My main PC is now vintage at 12 years old. However good base components and upgrades mean it works absolutely fine including for up to date gaming. And I'd prefer to spend £1500 on essential stuff like 911 servicing

The PC has Win10 installed with an EFI BIOS. With the forced move to Win11 next year, I need to work out the upgrade steps.

The mboard is a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3, with the F8 BIOS listed here. I've added a TPM module to the board, but it'll do nothing until it has a BIOS which can see it.

The key question is, if I upgrade the BIOS to a UEFI BIOS, do I also have to change the boot disk from MBR to GPT before the BIOS upgrade? Or do all UEFI BIOS allow legacy disk formats? Otherwise it seems a chicken and egg situation!

Thanks all.

Edited by Whoozit on Friday 10th May 10:21

[Whoozit]

xeny said:

In general, UEFI BIOS supports legacy boot. I have encountered a few earlier ones where this was idiosyncratic, so keep your fingers crossed.

Thanks. If I do find teh BIOS doesn't support legacy boot, is it possible to do the MBR->GPT change as a second drive in another Win10 computer?

[Whoozit]

colin79666 said:

You need to replace the PC or at least the motherboard, RAM and CPU if you want it to be Windows 11 officially compatible. It has more requirements that just a TPM (v2 or on cpu by the way).

Mmm. I'd missed the specific list of supported CPUs. How annoying. Health Check suggests it is the only blocker to a Win11 upgrade.

Guess I'll wait and see whether the lack of movement in the installed Win10 base forces their hand on continued support.