Win7 on a GPT drive

[graysky]

I have a Gigabyte GA EP-45-UD3P motherboard and would like to know if it's possible to install Win7 on an HDD with GPT partition tables. I've found mixed opinions and am wondering what is the accurate one

 

[logicearth]

No. That motherboard has a BIOS. Only boardes with EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) that supports GPT can. You can use GPT on a data only disk, however.

 

[graysky]

Thanks for the reply. I must say that I'm disappointed that microsoft's premier os doesn't do what mac osx and linux does.

 

[logicearth]

Mac OS is on EFI motherboards, just FYI. For Microsoft's target audience its not currently that important to use software workaround to get GPT on old BIOS based computers.

 

[graysky]

A fair point for macosx... in my case running linux as primary os, I'm not left with an option to use microsoft's product without either reformating my disks from gpt to mbr or by running it [windows] in a virtualized environment as a guest os under the linux host. It just seems short sited to me not to incorporate the ability to boot from a gpt drive -- an ability that your competition has -- into your flagship os