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I use Ubuntu Studio 18.04.2, with extended support time, in 2 desktop PCs and 1 laptop PC.

But... One of my desktop PC is an old BIOS mounted HDD installation.

I want to know if it is possible to convert all that installation into a UEFI installation, without to lose any data and without to have to format some partition.

Juan
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    It's possible but you'd need to create an EFI partition somewhere and that alone may imply managing other partitions. And, of course, the computer must be UEFI. –  Jun 06 '19 at 19:06
  • https://askubuntu.com/q/1076448/739431 may be related... and i think it is not possible without formatting and adjusting partitions.. – PRATAP Jun 06 '19 at 19:07
  • Oh! I see. Thank you so much Gabriela and PRATAP! Now I know I need a new HDD (hi hi hi!) – Juan Jun 06 '19 at 19:16
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    Probably easier with a new HDD. But you can convert from MBR to gpt. Converting to or from GPT - must have good backups. http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/mbr2gpt.html And you have to add an ESP - efi system partition. Needs to be FAT32 and at least 100MB. You probably can just shrink one of the first partitions to add it. And then you have to uninstall grub-pc and install grub-efi-amd64 for UEFI boot. Usually easier with Boot-Repair's advanced mode. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair & https://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/ – oldfred Jun 06 '19 at 20:24

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I am going to assume that you have things set up on your Ubuntu machine, and don't want to do a full re-install. Assuming that you can use a second drive is to do a fresh minimal install of 18.04.2, which will set up the EFI partition and boot instructions, and then rsync your old install on top. There will be a little bit of checking that your EFI partition points at a valid kernel in the installation, but it saves re-configuring everything. I have done it twice, and it has worked both times (with a bit of fiddling).

matthewca
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