I just substantially upgraded my workstation for the first time in 8 years. It now runs a Ryzen 5800X with 64 GB RAM on an Asus X570-Plus mobo.
To get my system to boot, I had to turn on a "compatibility mode" driver in BIOS because my system still boots with the legacy MBR method using grub 1.
My system is 23 years old and has a continuous history for that time, which I value highly. 23 years ago, MBR is how you booted. Now, it is probably the only remaining legacy artifact in my otherwise modern system.
I doubt I will make another substantial upgrade for a long time. But, a decade from now, MBR booting might be completely gone. So, maybe I should think about switching.
Now, I am not going to do this tomorrow or next week; I'm very busy and can't afford the downtime. But next time I do have the time, maybe I will do it.
So my question is: How do I do it?
If I were to, for instance, format my boot volume for UEFI, then do a clean install of the OS, then roll my backup copy into place for everything but the contents of /boot, would that do it? Is there anything in this scenario that would bite me in the ass and keep my system from running?
Is there an easier way? I doubt it given that I am sure I have to reformat the boot volume, but I have to ask.
My new mobo supports m.2 SSDs, and I probably will install a couple of these along the way (probably before very long, actually) and it could be that starting one of those SSDs as UEFI and moving my system onto it would be the way to go.
Has anyone done this? Any pointers?