unable to install windows 10 on GPT partition [SOLVED]

dj3642a

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Jul 12, 2015
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Hi all. Just built a NEW system and am trying to install windows 10.. on a fresh disk I initialized it for MBR instead of GPT.. went to install windows 10 and got message saying unable to install as system is EFI?? So I went and reinitialized disk and then set it for GPT.. then said unable to install on GPT partition. Then I read somewhere I need to change the DVD drive to UEFI when booting up. I did that and now when I boot up. It looks like it is starting and then it takes me back into the BIOS.. what do I have to do to install this?? And I have never used GPT before. So when selecting a file system do I choose NTFS or what?? Again. I can't even get that far. When I booted up the DVD drive NOT as UEFI.. then it booted to where it would ask me to install and then I get back into the unable to install message as this is a GPT partition.. HELP!!!!
 
Solution
You don't want to change active partition on a GPT drive. BIOS looks for the active partition at boot, and the active partition has a file in it that points to C. Making anything else active will break windows.

If you only have 1 partition then C drive will be active. The default set up of win 10 is 4 partitions but its happy enough running off 1, It will make a Recovery partition when you get the next version update of Win 10 (I only had 1 partition as well) - see below

MTE7LGg.jpg


What do you want to do? Why don't you want to boot off C?

Can you share a screen shot of the disk management screen? (need to upload to an image sharing site and show a link here)

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator


Windows - The tale of badly written error messages. When you try to install win 10 on a PC that has MBR partitions and which Win 10 recognises has a UEFI bios, win 10 will refuse to install. All it should say on error is delete all the partitions and click next.

I don't know what it refuses to install on a GPTY drive but win 10 can be just picky sometimes. Simplest answer is - When you get to screen where you choose drive, delete all the partitions on the drive, and select the unallocated space (all that is left) and click next. win 10 will create 4 partitions and continue with install.

BIOS - Set BIOS back to defaults. Boot DVD drive as non UEFI if that works and runs the installer. windows 10 will work it out, or not,.

Really, unless your boot drive is over 2tb in size, whether win 10 sets drive up as MBR or GPT really makes no difference. MBR can only access 2 tb on a drive, whereas GPT has no limit we likely to reach for a while (Max space on a GPT drive is 18.8 million TB)


This guide might help: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-windows-10-clean-install.html
 

dj3642a

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Jul 12, 2015
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ok thanks for the info. but i fiddled around a bit more in the bios and got it to work uefi.. i created a partition GPT and installed windows. but now my question is this.. i went to disk management and create a few more partitions. but how do i change over to boot to them. when i right click on the new volumes. there is no option to make active?? so how do i change over to boot to them?? thanks again :)
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
You don't want to change active partition on a GPT drive. BIOS looks for the active partition at boot, and the active partition has a file in it that points to C. Making anything else active will break windows.

If you only have 1 partition then C drive will be active. The default set up of win 10 is 4 partitions but its happy enough running off 1, It will make a Recovery partition when you get the next version update of Win 10 (I only had 1 partition as well) - see below

MTE7LGg.jpg


What do you want to do? Why don't you want to boot off C?

Can you share a screen shot of the disk management screen? (need to upload to an image sharing site and show a link here)
 
Solution

dj3642a

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Jul 12, 2015
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thanks for the info. i fiddled around with it and finally got it working ok and i am good. what happened was when the first partition was done. it changed the boot order in my bios. i had the DVD drive set for first boot and it was pushed to 3rd .. so it was not trying to use the windows disk upon start up but i got it working now.