Fresh windows 8 installation, 3tb HDD, UEFI problems...

[PanzerAce]

Going to be short, since this is all on my phone:

My current HDD potentially had a failure after about....six or seven years. Can't bring it up, system restore and repair can't do anything with various errors. Rather than stressing, decide to install Windows on a 3TB WD red drive I had in the system already formatted and everything. Except that it won't install on a GPT partition. Fine, delete partition, now it won't make a partition larger than two gigs. I can't figure out what's going on while just using my phone. I know that in the BIOS the drive isn't showing as UEFI. I've got no ability to use command prompt. Running an Asus sabertooth 990fx r2.

Any and all help getting this thing to install on a full partition would be welcome. (Just, please don't give links to massive text threads. None of them are mobile friendly.)

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, PanzerAce!

I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the 3 TB WD Red drive! 🙁 However, I'd strongly recommend you to consider using a different drive for booting. The WD Red is not designed to run operating systems, so you might encounter a slower start up of the system.
I'd advise you to use a different computer and reformat the WD Red in GPT again from there. If you can't do that, I'd suggest to go to your motherboard manufacturer's website and check if you have the latest BIOS firmware update for your model. Flashing BIOS might as well help you to recognize the WD Red properly and give you the opportunity to install Windows onto it.

Either way, I'd again suggest you to consider upgrading the booting/primary OS drive to a 7,200 RPM drive. The intelliPower RPM function of the WD Red is designed to be power efficient, thus you might find it a bit slow.

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[PanzerAce]

Hey there, PanzerAce!

I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the 3 TB WD Red drive! 🙁 However, I'd strongly recommend you to consider using a different drive for booting. The WD Red is not designed to run operating systems, so you might encounter a slower start up of the system.
I'd advise you to use a different computer and reformat the WD Red in GPT again from there. If you can't do that, I'd suggest to go to your motherboard manufacturer's website and check if you have the latest BIOS firmware update for your model. Flashing BIOS might as well help you to recognize the WD Red properly and give you the opportunity to install Windows onto it.

Either way, I'd again suggest you to consider upgrading the booting/primary OS drive to a 7,200 RPM drive. The intelliPower RPM function of the WD Red is designed to be power efficient, thus you might find it a bit slow.

Keep me posted with the troubleshooting!
SuperSoph_WD

Not my first choice, of a boot drive, believe you me. But the other options for HDDs that I had on hand tonight are all HDDs that are all ~10yrs old. I also don't currently have the abilitiy to do anything on the drive that requires another computer. So no boot USBs, reformatting on a different computer, etc.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

When booting the windows installer CD, make sure you select the efi boot option. Some motherboards have an option to select it by default. Sometimes you have to select it manually. Go into boot options on your motherboard. Then select the efi boot. That should allow you to create GPT partition.

If you get an error saying windows cannot install to this disk, you have to completely wipe the drive. You should be able to get the western digital diagnostics DOS boot disk from western digital's site.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, PanzerAce!

If you suspect any kind of failure on the HDD, you can indeed check it using the Data LifeGuard Diagnostic DOS version, just like @PsyKhiqZero mentioned. Yet again, you'd still need another PC to create the bootable flash drive with the software.
Since you can't do anything at this particular moment, try going into BIOS or simply reseat the CMOS battery or reset the jumper on the motherboard in order to reset BIOS. This will get the settings back to factory defaults, though, so make sure you reconfigure them. Here's a tutorial you might find useful: http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS
Once you power up the system again and boot into UEFI BIOS, you might actually be able to install Windows onto it this time. Here's another guide that might shed some more light on installing Windows on larger HDDs: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1923415/install-windows-3tb-4tb-larger-hdd.html

Hope these help. Keep us posted!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[PanzerAce]

I'll try that stuff out tonight. As minor clarification, the mobo defaults to uefi BIOS. The problem (I think) is that neither the disc drive nor HDD are being recognized as eufi as well in ASUS' ez BIOS gui.