Solved Out of my depth with re-partitioning for a clean install

jt7724

New Member
Messages
2
I normally consider myself pretty tech savvy, but over the last couple of weeks my laptop has been seriously acting up and I'm at the absolute end of my technical knowledge. I have decided that with the number and variety of my problems I want to perform a clean reinstall but have now gotten stuck on that too. I would be very grateful if someone could bail me out on this one.

First, specs and background, I don't think any of this is necessary to answer my main question and you can probably skip it, but I'll put it all out anyway. Problems are with a Toshiba satellite laptop, intel i3 processor, 4 gigs ram, 500 gb hard drive. Not a high end computer but I'm not a heavy user and it's only a year or two old. About 2 weeks ago it started acting up, blue screens mostly, with several different error messages. I did a lot of trouble shooting on my own including running checks on my hard drive and ram, both of which came up clean, I ended up doing a refresh on the laptop, that worked for a while before I started experiencing all the same problems. I escalated through a couple of other restore options all of which were cut short be error messages saying they couldn't complete. At this point, I want to try a completely clean installation of windows 8.1

Now on to the question. I didn't have an 8 or 8.1 cd available, but I made one with the tool microsoft provides for that purpose and it seems to work fine. I have booted to the cd and started the installation but I'm stuck on the "where do you want to install windows" screen. I see 6 partitions listed as follows

459 mb "recovery"
260 mb "system" (now formatted and listed as "primary", hope I didn't screw anything up too bad by doing that)
128 mb "MSR (reserved)"
454 gb "primary" (there's a string of letters and numbers associated with this one that I can copy if needed)
450 mb "recovery"
10.5 gb "recovery"

In addition, all of these partitions have an alert "Windows can't be installed to this disk, the selected disk is of the GPT partition style"

I have never partitioned a drive before and always bought computers with windows already installed. I really have no idea what to do here. All my data and drivers are backed up and I have the product key from the current installation. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    windows 8
In addition, all of these partitions have an alert "Windows can't be installed to this disk, the selected disk is of the GPT partition style"

Boot from the Windows installation media in UEFI Boot Mode, so you can use GPT (GUID Partition Table).

Quote from this post: UEFI Boot Mode (installing using the GPT partition style) and Legacy BIOS Boot Mode (installing using the MBR partition style). -> link

Tip   Tip
Error message when you boot from the Windows installation media in Legacy BIOS Boot Mode:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style. (see screenshot below)

That is because Windows can only be installed to MBR disk in Legacy BIOS Boot Mode, but you plan to install Windows on a GPT disk.

- Boot from the Windows installation media in UEFI Boot Mode, so you can use GPT (GUID Partition Table).
- But if you want to use MBR (Master Boot Record) partition table, then delete all partitions on the disk.

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.png

Error message when you boot from the Windows installation media in UEFI Boot Mode:

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. (see screenshot below)

That is because Windows can only be installed to GPT disk in UEFI Boot Mode, but you plan to install Windows on an MBR disk.

- Delete all partitions on the disk, so you can use GPT (GUID Partition Table).
- But if you want to use MBR (Master Boot Record) partition table, then boot from the Windows installation media in Legacy BIOS Boot Mode.

Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table.png

How to download and clean install Windows 8.1 if you have an OEM computer with UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8/8.1 product key. -> link
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo G580
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-3230M
    Memory
    8 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD Graphics 4000
    Browser
    Microsoft Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender, standard user account
    Other Info
    UEFI firmware (BIOS) embedded Windows 8 product key.
If you are never going to use the factory recovery option and want to do clean install, you can delete all of those partitions and start with a clean slate. If you select "custom" install you'll get options to delete partitions and create new ones. I'd split the drive into an OS partition and a data partition. Don't worry about the system partitions, windows will create those automatically and put them in the correct order.
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2299-clean-install-windows-8-a.html
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...e-firmware-interface-install-windows-8-a.html
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Education 64 Bit
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard
    Memory
    8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe
    Sound Card
    VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D
    Screen Resolution
    1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
    Hard Drives
    Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA
    PSU
    Thermaltake TR 620
    Case
    Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case
    Cooling
    Stock heatsink fan
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wireless K350 Wave
    Mouse
    Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad
    Internet Speed
    80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up
    Browser
    Internet Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
Back
Top