User guide

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10.7 Deploying BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and
vice versa
Acronis Snap Deploy 5 supports transferring 64-bit Windows operating systems between BIOS-based
hardware and hardware that supports Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI).
How it works
Depending on whether the machine uses BIOS or UEFI firmware for booting, the disk with the system
volume must have a specific partition style. The partition style is master boot record (MBR) for BIOS,
and GUID partition table (GPT) for UEFI.
In addition, the operating system itself is sensitive to the type of firmware.
When performing a deployment to a machine that has a type of firmware that is different from the
firmware of the original machine, Acronis Snap Deploy 5:
 Initializes the disk to which you are deploying the system volume either as an MBR disk or as a
GPT disk, depending on the new firmware.
 Adjusts the Windows operating system so that it can start on the new firmware.
For details, including the list of Windows operating systems that can be adjusted this way, see
“Deploying volumes” (p. 123) and “Deploying disks” (p. 125) in this section.
Recommendations
 Deploy the entire system onto uninitialized disks.
 When migrating to UEFI-based hardware, use Acronis bootable media or WinPE-based bootable
media of versions later than 4.0. Earlier versions of WinPE and Acronis PXE Server do not support
UEFI.
 Remember that BIOS does not allow using more than 2 TB of disk space.
Limitations
Transferring a Linux system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported.
Transferring a Windows system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported if a master image is burnt to
an optical disc (a CD, a DVD, or a Blu-ray disc).
When transferring a system between UEFI and BIOS is not supported, Acronis Snap Deploy 5
initializes the target disk with the same partitioning scheme as the original disk. No adjustment of the
operating system is performed. If the target machine supports both UEFI and BIOS, you need to
enable the boot mode corresponding to the original machine. Otherwise, the system will not boot.
10.7.1 Deploying volumes
Let's assume you have created a master image of the system and boot volumes (or the entire
machine) and want to deploy these volumes to a different platform. The ability of the deployed
system to boot up depends on the following factors:
 Source operating system: is the OS convertible or non-convertible? Convertible operating
systems allow changing the boot mode from BIOS to UEFI and back.
 64-bit versions of all Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista x64 SP1 are
convertible.