Hi everyone!
I was wondering if there is an easy way of installing W10 in larger disks (+2TB) on systems with no UEFI Support
Right now my HDD is formatted with MBR, windows 10 is installed in it, and have ~700GB of unallocated space wich i cant use due to partition limitations
Additionally, I have a slower and smaller hdd.
The goal is to install W10 on the larger hdd. It has to be gpt
any advice will be appreciated
:)
If you want to have your boot drive GPT, then it has to be UEFI boot.
For non-EUFI, I believe your only option is to partition the drive into a 2TB and a 1TB partition and install OS on the 2TB partition.
You can do MBR which has 2TB limitation or GPT which requires EUFI for boot drive, but those are your options.
(You can have GPT for non boot drives without EUFI though so you could also use a different drive for boot)
You can do it the other way around, also, install Windows 10 on the 1 TB partition and use the larger 2 TB partition for data storage. Also, with MBR and legacy bios, you can move the boot files to the Windows OS partition and delete the System reserved boot partition which will free up a space for another data partition if you want. Heck, you can also move the WindowsRE environment off the recovery partition and into the Windows OS partition so you would only need 1 partition for Windows itself and have three empty slots for partitioning however you would want to.
You cannot use more than 2.2TB in TOTAL on an MBR drive (no matter how many partitions) without using special driver software.
Support for Disk Drives Beyond 2.2 TeraBytes (TB) and 4K Advanced Format Sectors
Thanks! So what about this, maybe you know, @cereberus. Format the 3TB drive as GPT and install it as the second drive. On the slower, smaller drive put only a System Reserved partition, put the OS partition on the large GPT drive. Are there drivers in the boot files to then enable Windows to boot from the GPT drive from a legacy bios? Or do the GPT drivers get loaded with Windows? Then the slower hard drive would only be loading the boot files.
Might work theoretically, but not even sure how you would do this, as windows installation would not install to a gpt disk. Might be able to use Macrium to clone C drive only to GPT drive, but getting it to boot?
Frankly, it would just be easier to buy a small (say 256GB) ssd and use that as the OS drive.
Looks like many people had this issue in the past with Win7
Boot Windows 7/8 from GPT on BIOS system : No hybrid MBRs or DUET! - Windows 7 Help Forums
http://woshub.com/booting-windows-7-...ware-non-uefi/
What do you think?
The trick here is to convert drive to gpt not losing data. I think minitools partition manager free can do that.
Looks theoretically possible. Upgrades could be a problem though
I would still recommend getting an ssd and avoiding the problem.
What is that problem. I don't think you need GPT. MBR may suffice. Why don't you post a picture of your disk management.700GB of unallocated space wich i cant use due to partition limitations
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