Windows won't install on GPT formatted drive.

sleepless · 31 Oct 2016

This is probably a longshot, but might anyone here know why my laptop won't boot in UEFI mode? I'm trying to install windows 10 on a new SSD, but I'm getting the error message: "windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."

The laptop came with Windows7 installed but I'm not sure what the default boot mode is/was. I enabled the UEFI boot option in the bios, and saved the settings, however it doesn't seem to have made any difference:

I realize I could re-format the drive to NTFS, but I was hoping someone here might be able to help me first. I would really appreciate it.

*Edit: Here is a list of the BIOS specs, according to HWiNFO64. The last entry reads "UEFI Specification Support - Not Present"...

Does this mean this laptop doesn't support UEFI boot? What then is the option I have enabled in the first screenshot? I'm really confused.

NavyLCDR · 31 Oct 2016

I had an HP laptop that had what I called hybrid UEFI. It had limited support for UEFI booting in that it would only boot the HP support tools as UEFI. The hard drive had to remain MBR partitioned, though, and the OS had to boot in legacy BIOS mode. I do not know if that applies to your ASUS laptop or not.

What are you attempting to install Windows 10 from? In order to install Windows 10 in UEFI mode onto a GPT partitioned drive, the Windows 10 installation media must be booting in UEFI mode as well. This is how to prepare a USB flash drive for booting. Note to format the partition on the flash drive as FAT32 to make it compatible with both legacy BIOS and UEFI:
Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

9. To format the partition, type format fs=fat32 quick, and then click ENTER.

For step 12 of the above procedure you will mount the downloaded Windows 10 ISO file and just copy all the files and folders from the mounted ISO file to the USB flash drive.

The flash drive created above will be bootable with both legacy BIOS and UEFI. To make the flash drive bootable ONLY in UEFI mode, skip step 10 of the procedure which marks the USB flash drive partition as active. You can toggle the active flag with diskpart (and third party partition apps). Active flag on - bootable by legacy BIOS or UEFI. No active flag - bootable by UEFI only.

1. Open Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Type: diskpart
3. At the DISKPART prompt, type: list disk (This command will list all the disks that you have)
4. In the next prompt, type: select disk # ( # means the number of the disk which contain the wrong active partition )
5. At the DISKPART prompt, type: list partition
6. Use the command: select partition # (# means the number of the partition that you want to mark as active or not active)
7. Inactive the active partition with command: inactive
7a. To mark the partition as active, use the command: active

So, I would create the USB flash drive using the procedure above listed in the link to the Microsoft Technet, but skip step 10 - do not mark the partition as active. Then try to boot the computer from the USB flash drive. If your BIOS is not UEFI, then you will either get an error - no boot device, or you will get just a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of a black screen. In that case, mark the USB flash drive partition as Active and format your SSD with MBR partitioning.

AddRAM · 31 Oct 2016

You can install 10 in Uefi non Uefi, GPT, MBR it doesn`t matter, but just make sure the ssd is unallocated space and you shouldn`t have any issues.

Since you had a W7 PC, I would go non UEFI and MBR, create 1 install partittion, and you`re done.

Personally I put it on a single MBR partition. I saw no benefit that I needed with UEFI.

AddRAM · 31 Oct 2016

The arrow in your 2nd pic points right to "Bios Mode Legacy", you can`y boot a GPT disk in Legacy mode.

sleepless · 01 Nov 2016

yeah, so i guess the reason all the system specs were reading "Legacy" is because it was booting in legacy mode. for some reason all the help i had read on how to tell if your system supports uefi pointed to reading the MSInfo32. but that just displays the current boot mode, not the capability of the pc.

the problem was that the bootable usb i created had the wrong partition scheme. i changed that and formatted to FAT32. i was then able to install windows10 on the new gpt ssd. unfortunately i had some other issues.

- now in the bios boot options is "windows boot device", along with my other 2 drives. what does that refer to and should that be my first boot option?

- is it normal for windows10 to create 4 partitions to install on? 1x128mb, 1x100mb (efi system), 1x450mb (recovery), plus the primary partition? that wasn't the case on my win7 upgraded system, which only had 2 (1x100mb, plus the primary partition).

- windows will not recognize my old drive, which still holds a lot of data i wish to keep. it was displayed in the device manager, but not in file explorer. windows required that the disk be initialized which would erase all the data. i don't think anything is wrong with the drive as i have rebooted from it and everything on the old installation works fine. it's just when i boot from the new drive that the old drive isn't active and can't be accessed. a system that boots from a gpt drive using uefi should still be able to access a secondary drive that was formatted using mbr, right? maybe the system can't read the drive from a different port? when i boot the old system, it has no problem reading both drives.

i'm beginning to think i should just format the new drive mbr and be done with it.

cereberus · 01 Nov 2016

1) just change bios settings to boot from ssd first

2) 4 partitions is correct for a UEFI install but only 3 should be visible. One is probably a hangover - post image of disk partitions from disk management.

3) Your disk issue may be related to a bug reading some drives. Changing to mbr will not help. Others may advise a workaround.

sleepless · 01 Nov 2016

1 the ssd (which is gpt format) will not boot when selected from the boot menu. i have to select "windows boot device" in order to boot that drive.

2 yes there were 4 partitions created during install, with 3 visible as described in disk management.

3 old hdd requests initialization and cant be accessed. no problems booting windows from the old hdd though and all my old files are there. i just cant access them if i boot from the new ssd.

4 i again tried to reinstall windows but now when i reach the "where do you want to install windows" screen, the ssd is not listed. no partitions or unallocated space are listed from that drive. here is a screenshot of both disks in disk management when booted from the old hdd (old hdd requires initialization when boot from ssd). old hdd=disk 0, new ssd=disk 1:

why cant the windows installation process find the other disk? also both disks are listed in the bios under sata ports 0 and 1.

**EDIT: OK ive discovered that the windows installation process can only find whichever disk is plugged into port 0. it couldn't find the ssd because it was in port 1. that isn't normal is it? that windows will only install on the disk in port 0? i can boot windows from either disk, the port doesn't matter. it only matters for installing windows.

cereberus · 01 Nov 2016

sleepless said:

1 the ssd (which is gpt format) will not boot when selected from the boot menu. i have to select "windows boot device" in order to boot that drive.

2 yes there were 4 partitions created during install, with 3 visible as described in disk management.

3 old hdd requests initialization and cant be accessed. no problems booting windows from the old hdd though and all my old files are there. i just cant access them if i boot from the new ssd.

4 i again tried to reinstall windows but now when i reach the "where do you want to install windows" screen, the ssd is not listed. no partitions or unallocated space are listed from that drive. here is a screenshot of both disks in disk management when booted from the old hdd (old hdd requires initialization when boot from ssd). old hdd=disk 0, new ssd=disk 1:

why cant the windows installation process find the other disk? also both disks are listed in the bios under sata ports 0 and 1.

**EDIT: OK ive discovered that the windows installation process can only find whichever disk is plugged into port 0. it couldn't find the ssd because it was in port 1. that isn't normal is it? that windows will only install on the disk in port 0? i can boot windows from either disk, the port doesn't matter. it only matters for installing windows.

Some older pcs worked like that.

NavyLCDR · 01 Nov 2016

@sleepless - everything seems normal on your install except for the new Windows 10 not reading the second hard drive. The only solution that I know of for that is to make a backup image of the hard drive onto another drive such as an external USB drive, re-initialize the hard drive, then restore the image back to it. How did you partition the old hard drive to get 1 OS partition and 2 data partitions on it? My guess is that whatever was used to partition it probably introduced some incompatibility in the partitioning with the newest Windows 10 updates.

If you want to run the old OS that is on the hard drive from the SSD, you can always use a program like Macrium Reflect or MiniTool Partition Wizard to copy the OS partition from the old hard drive to the SSD. Then you might have to fix the boot files on the SSD to recognize the copied OS partition, but that is relatively easy.

Saltgrass · 02 Nov 2016

For a UEFI system, the Windows Boot Manager is the bootable device and needs to be set as first priority.

You made a small OS partition on the SSD.. Hopefully that won't mess you up during some updates.

Windows won't install on GPT formatted drive.

Windows won't install on GPT formatted drive.

i think my system is doing a lot of strange disk related things.