Microsoft won't let you achieve your step; so address your goal instead.
Microsoft erroneously conflates has an EFI partitioned hard disc with has EFI firmware. This is, of course, clearly wrong. It's quite possible — and indeed is becoming ever more desirable these days — to have an EFI partitioned disc on a machine that has old non-EFI firmware. You actually — although it took over a fortnight for people here to wring the goal out of you rather than the step — want the converse. You want to have an old PC/AT-style MBR partitioned disc on a machine that has EFI firmware. (EFI firmware itself has no problem with either partition table format, and is indeed required by the EFI specification to understand both. It's Microsoft that makes this error.) And you want this because someone else's software cannot understand the EFI partition table.
One of the several consequences of Microsoft's error is that the Windows NT 6.1 installer has to be invoked from an install medium that has in turn been bootstrapped from old PC98 firmware, in order for it to accept the idea of installing Windows NT 6.1 to a disc partitioned with the old PC/AT MBR partitioning scheme. Unfortunately, if the Windows NT install disc is bootstrapped in the new EFI way the installer will think that there's EFI firmware, and so declare that it cannot be installed to non-EFI partitioned hard discs.
As Weaver has pointed out, and as the Microsoft documentation explains, the installation CD-ROM is in fact dual-boot. As Rod Smith further explains, one therefore can manually construct a Windows NT 6.1 install disc that bootstraps in the old PC98 way. The Windows NT 6.1 installer will then allow installation to an old PC/AT MBR partitioned hard disc.
However, on systems lacking a compatibility support module, as you say your system does, this will not help one whit. Your system will require the EFI version of Microsoft's Boot Manager, installed on the EFI System Partition, because that's how your firmware will try to bootstrap the operating system. But when the Windows NT 6.1 installer is started on non-EFI firmware, it installs the non-EFI version of Microsoft's Boot Manager and won't create an EFI System Partition. Such an installation will not actually bootstrap on your machine, and you won't even be able to complete the installation procedure. Indeed, because you lack a CSM you won't even be able to begin the installation procedure, because you won't even be able to bootstrap the installation disc in the old PC98 way. Microsoft won't let you achieve your step, two times over.
So focus on your goal, instead. Your goal is to enable your customer to deploy Windows Server 2008 onto machines that have EFI firmware from a system image. Therefore the correct question that you should be asking — of the software vendor — is how to get that old/broken disc imaging software fixed so that it has no trouble with the EFI partition table.
If this is Windows Vista or Windows 7, you may be restoring the Windows partition without the small (~95mb) System partition.
If you've just resized the partition, the identifier might have changed, and you may need to adjust the boot settings in the BCD.
Best Answer
When you clone the disk you will want to copy all of the partitions.
If you just copy the data partitions without the boot partitions, the reimaged computer will not boot.
If you create the
EFIpartition from scratch you will need to recreate the Windows boot loader and all of the settings for it. Same with any other operating system that uses theEFIpartition to boot.The easiest way to clone partitions is to clone all partitions rather than only the data partition. If you do only the data partition then you have to recreate all of the partitions and any configurations needed within each partition.
Boot partition (
EFI)The
EFIpartition is used to hold the boot loader and configuration for the boot loader.You will want to copy this as it usually holds necessary data for the successful booting of the system.
It is possible to rebuild the partition but it is rather difficult and I would not recommend it for the faint of heart. the best option is to image the entire disk (or all of the partitions) and restore it (or all of them).
If you want to manually create the boot partition, here is the
diskpartcommand:MRP Partition
Based upon my research for this partition, it is just a buffer space that windows may or may not use.
The best bet is to copy and restore it because it appears that it could hold partition metadata that you may not want to lose.
If you want to manually create this partition, here is the
diskpartcommand:Windows Boot Loader
You will need to use
bcdbootto make the Windows Boot loader files required to boot the Windows system. Usebcdbootwith the/f UEFIoption to specify that you need to set up a UEFI set of the Windows Boot Loader files. Make sure that you customize the command as I left out a bunch of options that are system specific. Seebcdboot /?for more information. There is also a link to the technet article below.After the windows boot loader files have been recreated then you will need to configure the BCD database. You can do this by using the
bcdeditcommand.I am not going to go into detail about this command as it is huge, just run
bcdedit /?for more info or read more at technet. There is also a link to the technet article below.It is even easier to use EasyBCD as it has a nice interface you can use to edit the BCD database and it is free. (see link below)
Tl;Dr
Always migrate all partitions for Windows systems that the system creates (E.G.
EFI,boot,MRP,system,recovery,etc...).Links
What is the
MRP?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reserved_Partition
What is the
EFIpartition?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_system_partition
How to create the
MRP:https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770438(v=ws.11).aspx
How to create the
EFIPartition:https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725927(v=ws.11).aspx
How to use BCDBoot:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg577238(v=ws.11).aspx
How to use BCDEdit:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731662(v=ws.11).aspx
Neosmart EasyBCD:
http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/