[Help] Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 - finally switching to UEFI + GPT

BIOS/UEFI Modding BIOS modules (PCI ROM, EFI and others)
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I’ve got a Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 running the second-to-newest ASRock BIOS (v2.30). I’m trying to switch to a larger primary HDD (from a Samsung EVO 500GB to a Crucial 4TB SSD) but of course that requires GPT partitions, which in turn requires UEFI booting, which means checking GPU compatibility… ugh! A maze of dependencies, and each one seems like a roll of the dice.

I’m holding off on going to v2.31A (beta) because of reports that the change is bad, but the patch notes do talk about supporting GOP VBIOS which seems important. It seems like there are a lot of low-level hardware and firmware experts here, so broadly speaking: what is my surest path to success here?

I have:

  • Intel Core i7 3770 Ivy Bridge
  • Gigabyte’s version of the NVIDIA RTX3060 12GB card running the 94.04.71.00.EE VBIOS (?) which CPU-Z informs me supports UEFI (I imagine all RTX 3000-series support this out of the box!)
  • ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 with Chipset rev 09 and South Bridge rev B3
  • BIOS v2.30 with Microcode 0x21

I guess my biggest question for you experts is do you foresee any risk to upgrading the BIOS given this hardware configuration?

Would also cheerfully take tips on the right order of operations to try the MBR-to-GPT upgrade. Upgrading the C-drive in place seems fraught because if it goes bad, I can’t easily go back! Cloning the C-drive to the new drive (I have a Sabrent drive cloning sled) seems like a no-brainer. I already tried using MiniTool to clone the drive and upgrade the boot sector(s) to GPT all at once, but when I do that, and select “EFI” instead of “Legacy” in the BIOS, the machine hangs at the BIOS splash screen and takes no keyboard input.

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SUPER unbalanced GPU for the cpu generation… sell the Z68 and by a more recent 2nd hand DDR4 at least platform…

EFI GOP dxe present on bios is only used by the onboard iGPU as primary output device, no effect on external cards.
0x21 is the last mcode, so its only your choice to remain or upgrade bios.

Now do yourself a favor and perform a new, CLEAN OS instalattion…on that new disk.
That’s it from me, you should wait for other users POV, good luck.

EDIT:
When i do advise a clean OS installation, its only to get the optimal performance… of course its always a user choice when comes to system re-configuration/apps.

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Thanks! Appreciate your perspective, and yes, I drive my motherboards & CPUs into the ground because the old i7 and Obama-era chipset are still working great, but I do a lot of development on AI models (training image classifiers, etc.) that requires a modern NVIDIA GPU with plenty of VRAM. Keeping a plenty-good machine running long after its “expiration date” is my PC-building happy place. :slight_smile:

Was kind of hoping to avoid a full OS reinstall because it means reinstalling all my other programs, but it’s still on the list of options.