Sometimes when installing a new operating system, in particular Windows 7, the question arises how to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk.

Often an error occurs during installation that tells the user that the task cannot be completed.

Installing Windows to a GPT Disk in the Installer Window - The Easiest Way

Below in the video you can see the entire process of formatting GPT into a system-readable format described above right during the installation of the operating system.

Convert GPT to MBR right on time installation - Command line method

Despite the harsh response to this installation method in the video of the previous section, we will give below the algorithm for converting a file to MBR.

So , the error itself looks as shown in Figure 1 . It occurs at the stage when the user selects the disk where the operating system will be installed.

And to solve this problem, you need to perform a number of these simple steps:

• Launch command line. Most often this is done by simultaneously pressing the keys. Shift and F10. In some computer models, along with this, you will also need to press and fn.
• On the command line, you first need to run the utility, destined for converting and other similar operations with disks. It's called DiskPart. Actually, to run it, you need to write on the command line " diskpart » and press Enter on keyboard . After that, the utility will be launched - this can be seen from the inscription DISKPART at the beginning of the input line.

• Next, you need to select the disk with which we will work. To see the entire list of available disks, there is a command " list disk ». There you need to remember the number of the disk on which we are going to install the system. The choice of the disk is made by the command "select disk [disk number]". An example can be seen in Figure 3. In this example, there is only one drive in the list. Most likely , you will have the same situation .

• The selected drive should be cleared. To do this, enter the command " clean".
• Now, in fact, we enter the command to convert the GPT disk to MBR. This is a simple command convert mbr ».
• Next, you need to re-create the partition, because we previously deleted it. To do this, enter the command " create partition primary size [size in MB]". An example can also be seen in Figure 6.

Note : the size must be specified real, that is, no more than what is physically on the selected disk. You can find out how much a disk can hold in itself from the table shown after entering the command " list disk ». There is a column called " The size ". In our example, Disk 0 has a size of 20 GB, so in the command " create partition primary » we enter a size of 20000 MB.

Further selected and converted disk need format. This is done in order to avoid the problems associated with the fact that there may be some residual data on the disk in the future. This is done by the command format fs [filesystem] label “[disk name]” quick ». In this case, you can come up with the name of the disc yourself. Parameter " quick » is responsible for the quick formatting method.

That's all - the conversion process is completed, and Windows 7 can be safely installed on the selected drive. Now it remains only to go to our installation window and update the list of disks. To do this, there is usually a button under it " Refresh". Click on it and see the disk we created with MBR format.

Then calmly click on this disk, then the button " Further" at the bottom of the open window and continue installing the new operating system.

Installation errors

In principle, the option described above is absolutely optimal for most users and it works in the vast majority of cases. But it cannot be ruled out that something could still go wrong.

In addition, when installing Windows 10 and 8, the above problem may also occur and a method with transformation right during the installation there, too, may not work.

It is also worth mentioning that an error with the inability to install something on a GPT disk may appear not during the installation of the operating system. Although then you can also go to the command line and perform all the above operations, there are other ways to solve this problem.

One of them is to set the BIOS to boot from UEFI mode. The second is only suitable for users of 32-bit Windows: you need to install a 64-bit operating system.

If you carefully read the official Microsoft documentation, you can take it for yourself that all versions of Windows, starting with Server 2003 SP1, can work with GPT markup using a data storage partition. The problem is that only 64-bit versions that are installed on motherboards with UEFI can boot from such a partition.

Why is the GPT format needed?

When using the usual MBR partitioning, only 2 TB is available, while the rest of the space cannot be partitioned. Just in order to use the entire volume of the hard drive, if it exceeds 2 TB, and GPT markup is needed.

This format has other advantages:

• Support for a large number of partitions (128, while MBR has only 4).
• High level of reliability. Partitions are duplicated in several places on the disk, so even if the first sectors are damaged, this will not affect the performance of the equipment.
• No need to use logical partitions.

This is where you can stop the theoretical enumeration of the advantages and begin to figure out in practice how to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk.

Booting from a GPT partition

There are several methods to solve the problem of starting Windows on BIOS systems from a GPT disk, however, to apply them, you must have a good understanding of the Linux environment. Therefore, the easiest way to use a GPT partitioned hard drive is to connect an MBR hard drive and boot from it.

However, there is another way, less known, but tested by users on their machines. It is with him that we will meet today. You will need:

1. USB flash drive with a capacity of at least 64 MB. It will host the bootmgr boot manager, which will provide the initial system startup, and then transfer control to the main Windows bootloader hosted on the GPT volume.
2. A system that, at the BIOS level, supports working with a USB drive.

It looks a little confusing at the moment, but you will understand everything during the installation process. In addition, using this method, you can install Windows 7 of any bitness, and not just the 64-bit version.

Installation to a blank disk

If you try to install Windows on a GPT hard drive on a computer without UEFI, you will get a message like this:

In principle, you can try to convert an MBR partition to GPT using special commands, but this method has two serious drawbacks:

• First, it is a rather complicated procedure.
• Secondly, it is highly likely that after installation, if it goes well, you will again see your disk with MBR partitioning. Moreover, some amount of free space may simply disappear, so it’s better not to experiment, and go straight to the proven option - changing the layout of the volume with the system already installed.

In addition, as we said above, you can only install a 64-bit version of Windows 7, 8 into the GPT partition and only through the UEFI environment.

Changing the layout of the volume with the installed system

To perform this procedure, you will need the Gptgen utility on a flash drive. With its help, you can convert the partition table format from MBR to GPT without losing the data stored on the hard drive.

Important! Despite the fact that usually there are no problems with the saved information, it is recommended that you transfer the necessary data to removable media in advance so that you can easily access them if necessary, and not decide how to recover deleted files.

Working with the Gptgen utility

During the format conversion process, a warning will appear on the screen stating that the developers cannot guarantee the correct loading of the disc after changing its format. After a while, you will see a notification that the conversion was successful. Now you can start installing the bootloader on removable media.

Transferring the bootloader

After restarting the computer, the system will not start - this is a normal situation, as it should be. Connect the flash drive prepared in advance to the computer, boot from installation disk Windows 7 and open a command prompt (you can run it with Shift+F10).

After completing all the steps described in command line and restarting the computer, you need to go into the BIOS and set the boot priority from the USB flash drive. After saving the changes, the system should boot correctly.

You can verify that Windows is hosted on a GPT partition using Disk Manager (diskmgmt.msc). On the "Volumes" tab system disk the partition type must be "GUID Partition Table".

Similarly, you can install a 32-bit version of Windows 7 or even a 64-bit version of Windows XP and run it safely on a disk with a GPT partition.

After installing the OS Windows 7 users often have a question about how you can install Windows 7 on a GPT disk.
The thing is that during the installation of Win 7 on a GPT disk, an error immediately appears that tells the user that the requested task cannot be performed. It is not difficult to solve this problem, you need to reformat the disk to another MBR format.

Although on the Internet you can stumble upon rather complicated, confusing instructions for solving this problem.

In fact, all this is solved, and quite simply, most often. There is such a possibility that some "complex" tasks will have to be completed. That's exactly what we'll talk about.

1. How to convert GPT to MBR during the installation process

This is what the error itself looks like in the figure below. This error occurs when you select the OS installation disk.

Everything is solved quite simply:
- Open a command prompt. This is done with Shift and F10. Some computer models suggest calling a line through the Fn key.

Through " cmd” you will need to run the required utility, which is needed specifically for converting and other similar operations with disks. The DiskPart utility in question. In general, to run it in the command line that opens, you need to enter the value "diskpart" and confirm your action with the "Enter" key.

- We proceed to the choice of the disk with which we have to work. To view the currently existing disks, you need to enter the "list disk" command. After viewing the disks, remember its number, it will be needed for further installation of the system. The disk is selected by the following command "select disk #", where # is the number of the required disk.

- A specific disk is cleaned using the "clean" command.
- Now you need to enter a command in order for the disk to be converted from GPT to MBR format. The "convert mbr" command itself
- Re-create the partition that was previously deleted. Especially for this, we enter the following command "create partition primary size #" where # is the size of the partition in megabytes.

Note: the specified disk size must be real, that is, not exceed the actual capacity of the drive at the moment.

Now the converted drive will need to be formatted. This item is executed in order to get rid of possible problems due to residual data on the disk. The disk is formatted as follows: format fs [FS (file system)] label “[disk name]” quick»

You can name the disk whatever you like. The quick parameter is responsible for the speed of formatting the disk.

This is how the conversion process ends. Now Windows 7 can be installed on a previously inaccessible drive. It remains only to go and update the list of disks required for work. To do this, click on the "update" button in the lower left. Click on update and see the disk already created in MBR format.

We continue the installation with the "Next" button.

2. In case of errors

Of course, the option provided above is quite complicated for most users, and it may not always work, unfortunately. Therefore, there is a possibility that something will go wrong in the process.

In addition, during the installation of the "eight" and "tens", identical conversion problems may also occur.

A simpler, better option to overcome the error with installing the OS on a GPT disk is to download a new installation image, preferably with a 64-bit system. If this does not help, then you will have to use the EFI boot mode.

3. How to set EFI mode

In order to complete your task, follow the BIOS. Most often, this can be done using two buttons: F2 and Del while loading the OS on a PC. There is an option that the “BIOS” call button is different, or there is a separate item for this at system boot time.

Entered BIOS. Look for sections " Advanced», « BIOS settings», « BIOS Setup" or last option « BIOS Features". In one of these items, you need to select the mode to boot, most often it is "boot mode". There are two options at this point: EFI" or " UEFI» points. On older versions, everything looks like below.

- You will need to set a special SATA configuration, for this we require AHCI. This parameter can be found most often in sections like: " Sata Config», « Advanced" or " Main". Here you need to select the AHCI item.

If at this moment Windows 7 is “standing” on the computer, you will need to disable one of the Secure Boot functions. The option to disable can be found in the BIOS, in one of the tabs: " Main», « Authentication», « System configuration" or " Boot". The found parameter must be switched to the "Disabled" mode.

All three steps that were described above should help in solving this problem. Now installing the system on a GPT disk will be available by converting it to MBR format.

With the help of this article, you will be able to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk of a desktop computer.

Hello admin, I ask for your advice! I bought a powerful system unit. The BIOS on a new computer is, you guessed it, UEFI. I installed the Windows 7 64-bit operating system myself, but ran into a problem. I have a 3 TB hard drive and after installation operating system 745 GB remained unallocated on it. After a short search for information on the Internet, I realized that this is due to the fact that my HDD has the most common and already obsolete type of MBR partition table placement, which does not see all the space on a hard disk larger than 2 TB. And this means that my hard drive needs to be converted to the new GPT partition table layout format, which, by the way, has many other advantages over MBR. This is where my adventures began, judging by the numerous posts on the Internet, I'm not the only one.

On one very reputable resource, they offered me a helping hand with such a “encouraging” message "None of the editions of Windows 7, unlike Windows 8, supports installation on drives with a GPT table of contents". In my case, you just need to buy an SSD SSD and install the Windows 7 64-bit operating system on it, then convert my second 3 TB hard drive to GPT and use it for file storage.
Administrator's note: This can only be done if all sections are deleted on it and, accordingly, there is no information.

All this is good, but I don't want to buy an SSD yet, I just need to convert my 3TB hard drive to standard in GPT and install Windows 7 64-bit on it.
I continued to search for a suitable solution on the Internet and found it. I had to remove a new hard drive and connect it to an old Windows 7 computer. After that, I went to Computer Management, deleted all partitions and converted it to a GPT disk. Then I connected it to a new computer and began to install Windows 7 64-bit, what a surprise I was when the installation could not continue due to the error “ Windows installation on the this disc impossible. Selected disk has GPT partition style»!!!

I had to dive back into the Internet and found another solution. Which time I booted from the installation Windows disk 7 and having reached the selection of the partition for installing the operating system, I pressed Shift + F10 on the keyboard and booted into the command line and entered the following commands:
diskpart
sel dis 0
clean
convert gpt
exit
exit

With this, I converted my hard drive to a GPT disk. Then I clicked "Refresh" and selected unallocated space. Surprisingly, the "Next" button was active, the installation of the operating system began. Imagine my surprise when, after a successful installation of Windows 7, my hard drive turned out to be MBR again and it lacked 745 GB, with which nothing could be done. In short, I have tried everything and am ready to agree with the idea that it is impossible to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk. Alexei.

How to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk

Hello, friends! Let's get straight to the point. If you want to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk, then you need to use a simple USB flash drive with a capacity of at least 8 GB. Then correctly configure the UEFI BIOS itself. If you have a simple BIOS without UEFI support, unfortunately you will not be able to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk.

Installing Windows 7 64-bit on a 3TB disk or any other size using a UEFI flash drive. Create a bootable UEFI flash drive!

We connect our USB flash drive to the computer (carefully, all data on it will be deleted). We launch the command prompt as an administrator, then slowly enter the commands.
diskpart and press Enter
list disk- We see that our flash drive is defined as Disk 2
select disk N (where N is the flash drive number, in my case 2)
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format quick fs=fat32 label=”Win7UEFI”
assign
exit

Do not close the command line
Now you need to mount on a virtual drive Windows image 7 64-bit. If you have DAEMON Tools Lite 4, you can use it. If you're on Windows 8, you can use your own tools.
Mounted?

Now run the following command:
xcopy I:*.* F: /e /f /h(Where I is the drive letter of the mounted ISO image with Windows 7, and F is the drive letter of the flash drive). The installation settings are being copied. Windows files 7 on a flash drive.

There are a few commands left:
xcopy F:efimicrosoft*.* /e /f /h F:efi(where F is the drive letter of the flash drive)
xcopy C:Windowsootefiootmgfw.efi F:efiootootx64.efi(where F is the drive letter of the flash drive)
answer the question by pressing the keyboard (F).
And the last one:
bootsect /nt60F:(where F is the drive letter of the flash drive) (the file is located in F:ootootsect)
Our UEFI Windows 7 64-bit bootable flash drive is ready!

Note: If you get this error when you enter the bootsect /nt60 command "bootsect" is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file then change the command to this I:Bootootsect.exe /nt60 F:(Where I is the drive letter of the mounted ISO image with Windows 7, and F is the drive letter of the flash drive).

BIOS UEFI

In order to install Windows 7 on a GPT disk, we need to properly configure our UEFI BIOS.
We press Delete or F2 at boot and enter the UEFI BIOS. Click Advanced (F7).

Then we go to the menu CSM (Compatibility Support Module)

and put the position Running CSM in Enabled.

Additional options open here.
Boot device options – set only UEFI

Download Priority
Boot option number 1 - select our flash drive

Boot option number 2 - select our hard drive.

That's all the settings. We press F10, with this we save the changes we made to the UEFI BIOS.

In general, in the UEFI BIOS, you can change the boot priority in the initial window. We press Delete or F2 in the initial phase of booting the computer, enter the UEFI BIOS, select the boot menu (F8),

We boot into the Windows 7 setup program. Everything is as usual. Further.

Install. We accept the license agreement. Full installation (advanced options).

In this window, we do not pay attention to existing sections.

We call the command line, in it we will convert our hard disk to the GPT standard, all partitions and data on the disk will be deleted. Click on the keyboard Shift+F10. On the command line, enter the following commands in sequence:
diskpart
sel dis 0
clean
convert gpt
exit
exit

click Update.

The normal installation process of Windows 7 takes place. After installing the operating Windows systems 7 go to Disk Management, right-click on our disk and select Properties,