Excuse me if this subject had discussed before.
Here is my question. I bought a new 4tb GPT disk. I was planning to replace the current 1 TB main drive with this 4 TB disk. How can I install windows 7 on it? Please advise me how. Thank you.
Does your motherboard support UEFI?
If your motherboard has BIOS, do you know that your BIOS supports 4 TB drives?
Do you use 64-bit Windows?
A system with BIOS cannot boot a GPT disk. You must use UEFI instead of BIOS, for a GPT boot disk, regardless of size.
If it's 4 TB and you want that all in a single partition, you'd need to use GPT.
Booting from a partition greater than 2.2 TB requires GPT partitioning and UEFI, not BIOS.
But I certainly would NOT make a C partition of 4 TB. I'd make a much smaller C for Windows and applications (anywhere from 100 GB on up, depending on how many apps you have) and then use the remainder of the drive for another partition D, which would hold nothing but data.
Thank you for your useful post. The computer is in my office. I am writing this from my recollection.
The computer is about 5 years old and may not have UEFI booting. That is for sure.
I read that windows 7 can be installed on GPT disk after converting it into MBR disk. I have installed windows 7 last week on 2 TB disk.
Now, I tempted to replace it with a 4tb GPT disk. Since 4 tb is too big, I felt that it might need more work to install windows 7. If I convert the 4tb disk into MBR, can I install windows 7 on it? Please advise me.
Hi
Please update your system spec by following System Info - See Your System Specs. Then we will be able to check whether your system supports UEFI mode. If it is not, i wouldn't recommend replacing the 1 TB HDD. Instead you can connect the 4 TB HDD as a slave drive in your system. You can partition the disk under "GPT" scheme and create only one partition if you want but i don't recommend doing that. It is always better to split such high capacity disks to at least two partitions.
If your PC is 5 years old, it's not likely to support UEFI. So you probably have BIOS instead.
I've never had a disk that large that I wanted to use for a Windows installation.
As I understand it, you must use MBR because a system with BIOS cannot boot a GPT disk.
And if you use MBR, you are limited to about using about 2.2 TB of that 4 TB disk. The rest of it will be useless and unavailable to you.
Your other choices are:
1: buy a new motherboard that supports UEFI.
or
2: leave Windows on the 1 TB drive. Format the larger drive as GPT and put ONLY data on it, not Windows. You'd then be able to use all of the 4 TB and would not be limited to 2.2 TB as you are now. This assumes that your current motherboard and BIOS can use and recognize a drive that large. You'd have 2 hard drives in the PC.
Once you have the drive installed and formatted, the installation procedure is the same for GPT as it is for MBR.
Someone else may have another idea, but that's my understanding of your situation.
Thank you for all your help.
I decided not to try to install windows 7 on 4tb disk.
The computer already has 4 tb slave disk.
The computer has only two bays. I cannot use the 4 tb disk.
Thanks again.
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