I previously had Windows 8 installed on my desktop - I've just booted to Windows 8.1 Pro Setup so I can install it on my desktop - I've formatted my hard drive from within the setup but when I try to install Windows 8.1 Pro on the partition, I get the following error message:- 'Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI Systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT Disks' Help!!! what can I do now as I don't have a version of windows installed anymore Thanks in advance
If you don't have any important data on the disk, it's pretty simple. All you have to do is to access the recovery options through Windows 8.1's installation media, and enter the command prompt. Then type Diskpart and press enter. Once you're into diskpart, type "list disk". You'll see a list of the installed disk drives with a number next to each one, one would be the USB pen with Windows 8.1 so ignore that one (unless you burned it on a dvd). Then "select disk" followed by the number of the relevant disk (the one on which you want to install Windows). Then you type "clean" and then "convert gpt". You're ready to install Windows 8.1
When I was installing Windows 8.1, I deleted all partitions of my hard drive and installed it to the "Unallocated space". It automatically created all the needed partitions. You may try that if you don't use complex partition setup.
Press shift+f10 before starting windows setup and use diskpart to either clean the system disk or convert it to GPT
Thanks for all your replies - I'm trying to go down the diskpart route - how do I create a partition in diskpart in the unallocated space? I have on my Drive 1 - Drive 1 has the following:- 783GB Unallocated Space 150GB Partition 1 (Data Partition) Thanks in advance
You can't convert to GPT unless you sacrifice all the partitions on the drive. Right now, your best course of action would be to run the BIOS in legacy mode. If you can make a backup of that data, then you can use diskpart and type "clean" and "convert gpt". Windows will create the partitions, you will not need to do that manually through diskpart.
Thanks again But stupid question - how do I run the BIOS in legacy mode? - I have AMI ver 2.10.1208 bios on my desktop I've looked and I must be blind......but I can see anywhere about legacy mode.
Are you sure? There must be an option to swich from UEFI to Legacy BIOS mode. Almost every UEFI BIOS has that. If that's not your case, then your only option is to backup that data and erase the whole drive, convert it to GPT and install Windows in UEFI mode, which is the best way anyway.