Can't Install Windows 7 on GUID Partition Table

[kolotyluk]

Is it possible to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk?

I created a RAID 0 array on my dual Xeon 5580 system and tried installing Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit RTM. When I got to the "Where do you want to install Windows" part I used shift-F10 to open up a command window, then I used diskpart to create a GPT with the following partitions:

Disk 0 Part 1 - 102 MB EFI System
Disk 0 Part 2 - 128 MB MSR
Disk 0 Part 3 - 500 MB Primary
Disk 0 Part 4 - 7446 GB Primary

But there was a message "Windows cannot be installed to Disk 0 Partition 3 (show details)" - clicking on "show details" gave me "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."

What gives? I thought Windows Vista and beyond supported GPT.

The problem with MBR is that you can't have a file system larger than 2 TB.

Cheers, Eric

 

[SIW2]

I believe you need a mobo that supports EFI - so it should then work.

This is for Vista :

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/UEFIGuide.mspx

 

[kolotyluk]

I have and Intel S5520SC mobo - which is EFI based, but it does have an BIOS compatibility mode by default.

Thanks for the guide - I'll read up on it.

Cheers, Eric

 

[SIW2]

You're welcome, keep us posted as to how you get on.

 

[kolotyluk]

OK, I've been following

Installing Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 on UEFI Systems

But when I go to the EFI shell it cannot see my Optical Drive. I tried copying the EFI boot scripts over to a USB drive, but after it asks to boot from the CD/DVD it just returns to the EFI shell. It seems I have a few ways to go:

1. Find out if there is a way to map my Optical Drive into the EFI shell so I can run the Windows EFI boot directly from there...
2. Create an EFI-boot-only version of Windows 7 Setup and burn that to a DVD. Unfortunately the only instructions I've found are quite complicated and I do not understand them fully.
3. Find a way to make Windows 7 Setup boot from a USB drive - but I don't really know how to do this.

It really hurts to be on the bleeding edge of technology - blood everywhere!

Cheers, Eric

 

[SIW2]

This may help:

Installing Windows to an EFI-Based Computer


http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791521.aspx

Second post here is interesting also:

http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=184349

Unless that's the one you already found.

 

[kolotyluk]

OK, I created an EFI-only version of Windows setup per

Force Windows 7 install DVD to do an EFI Boot - InsanelyMac Forum

But when I try to boot, the LED on the DVD flashes a few times, then nothing happens. My display is blank with a blinking cursor.

I suspect the problem is that this DVD won't boot because my system in not in pure EFI mode. There is a BIOS setting for "EFI Optimized Boot" - but the last time I tried setting that my system became a brick and I could not boot anything or even get back to the BIOS settings. I had to clear the CMOS in order to be able to get back to a working system. I'm working with Intel Technical support - but the dialog is slow because I only seem to get one response from them per day.

It's really a shame that Windows 7 cannot install/boot a GPT disk while the system is in BIOS mode. Is this some hard restriction about the BIOS, or is it that Microsoft have just not gotten around to supporting it?

Cheers, Eric