Configure UEFI Hard Disc

Hi to all,

I have to reconfigure my hard disc to allow for UEFI booting after a clean installation. Is this all I have to do:

1) Convert MBR to GPT.

2) Add another partition, System as Fat32.

3) Put BCDBoot on this new system partition.

The basic current disc layout is (i) System, (ii) MSR, (iii) Windows and (iv) Recovery (- Microsoft).

At the moment there are 3 partitions. 2 primary - one as windows/C: and one as system reserve - and 1 recovery.

So following this basic disc layout. The HD already has MSR, Windows/C: and Recovery and so only needs the system partition.

Is this that there is all to the process of configuring a UEFI hard disc? There is not much about this.

Good to hear from someone who done this.

TroubleShot said:

I have to reconfigure my hard disc to allow for UEFI booting after a clean installation.

If you are going to perform a clean installation of Windows, why not simply allow Windows to perform the partitioning automatically?

When you get to the point in the installation where your disks and partitions are displayed, select each partition on the disk to which you want to install and delete it. When you are done, that disk should simply show one large area of unallocated space. Choose it for installation. Windows will then create all the partitions automatically.

A few screenshots:

Here I have a disk that was already partitioned for use in a BIOS based system:



After I delete all those partitions, I would see this:



I select the unallocated space to install onto. When Windows is done installing, if you were to run setup again, you would see this (on a UEFI based system):



Viewed from Diskpart, you would see this:



I hope that this helps, but if I am not fully understanding the scenario, please do let me know.

Berton,

I agree but it did not. (This may be due to this. Under UEFI it was not possible to boot from any external media as not recognised. So once BIOS updated I had to use legacy mode to install).

Hsehestedt,

This is what I did and knew. But the automatic partitioning failed to do this. (again see above).

So that leaves trying again as one option.

How about configuring the hard disc for uefi option though - not hard?

Follow this tutorial:
Convert Windows 10 from Legacy BIOS to UEFI without Data Loss

NavyLCDR,

Does this method only convert MBR to GPT? Diskpart does this anyway.

If it is only converting, then a new partition (system) still needs to be created as well as bcdboot copied to this partition.

TroubleShot said:

Under UEFI it was not possible to boot from any external media as not recognised. So once BIOS updated I had to use legacy mode to install.

You should have been able able to boot and install in UEFI mode. Check your bios settings, turn of Secure Boot and try another clean install.

If we are talking about the Samsung in your specs see if this helps:

Booting modern samsung laptop from usb drive - Spiceworks

Try NavyLCDR's suggestion, but here is some info that may help you in booting your media on a UEFI based system...

If you are having difficulty booting from media while in UEFI mode, try this method of creating a bootable thumb drive:

Create bootable USB installer if install.wim is greater than 4GB

Some more explanation:

There are two issues in play here:

1) Many UEFI based systems do not like to boot from a thumb drive that is formatted with NTFS.
2) If you use FAT, your file size is limited to 4GB per file and the install.wim included in Windows installation media may be over 4GB in size.

You can split up the the install.wim into smaller pieces (The above tutorial also links to the tutorial explaining how to do that), but my personal preference is to not do so. The above method works because it creates 2 partitions on the thumb drive, the first of which is FAT, thus satisfying those systems that don't like NTFS boot media. Once booted, access to the second partition, formatted with NTFS is possible.

I've had really good luck using this method. It's worked for me on everything I have ever thrown at it including x86, x64, BIOS, and UEFI based systems. Might be worth a try.

Bree and Hsehestedt,

Previously (older BIODS) a UEFI boot off external media was impossible. Now (updated BIOS) it only boot in BIOS. For UEFI now need to setup that fourth system partition.

NavyLCDR,

Your methods seems to include adding that fourth partition as well (via vlog/video). (Is it possible to ignore the encryption at this stage?)

I have no idea how encryption affects it.