SBS 2011 Essentials: Can't backup GPT partitions?

I

ir0nw0lf

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Just finished setting up a new server with SBS 2011 Essentials. Got four workstations hooked up, all Win 7 Business x64. Two are on a new motherboard with UEFI BIOS' on them. I had no idea that Windows was going to use GPT instead of MBR on the drives. Got both of the new workstations totally done and when I tried to make the backups, they fail every single time. Checked Microsoft's website and find out that the backup feature doesn't work on GPT partitions!

I presume there is not way to convert the GPT partitions to MBR without total data loss? How do I get Windows to not use GPT and use MBR on these drives? (500GB drives) I got a bad feeling that I am going to have to start totally over from scratch. Or might I be able to make say an Acronis image of the workstations, re-format the hard drive using MBR and then restoring the image?

I could bash my head against the wall right about now. Wished I knew about this issue before hand or wished MS would fix this!
 
I do not know of a way to convert GPT to MBR.

Your story is interesting though because a few years ago I tried to get my system to install to GPT to try it out, where yours did it automatically. The only thing I can think of is to check your motherboard UEFI settings to see if there is an option to enable/disable boot to GPT, then disable it. I would also research your servers model # on help forums to see if anyone with that specific model has seen the issue. Finally, it's possible that the drive was already formatted to GPT before you tried to install the OS (one of the ways to force GPT installation). To solve this, back up your data, then pull the drive and write zero's to it to destroy the GPT, then reinstall the OS. It should choose MBR by default.
 
Knew you could go MBR-> GPT but didn't know it could be done the other way around. You learn something every day :cool:
 
bigdogchris said:
Knew you could go MBR-> GPT but didn't know it could be done the other way around. You learn something every day :cool:
Click to expand...

Aye :) I learned a while back that I could convert a dynamic disk to basic through some manual methods. I was quite surprised that it worked since it normally can't be done via Windows.
 
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