UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 8 with

How to Install Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 using the "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface" (UEFI)​

   Information

Systems that are built using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) are more likely to achieve very fast pre-boot times when compared to those with traditional BIOS. This isn’t because UEFI is inherently faster, but because UEFI writers starting from scratch are more able to optimize their implementation rather than building upon a BIOS implementation that may be many years old.

Delivering fast boot times in Windows 8 - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

This method can also be used for the UEFI installation of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Vista SP1.

   Note

You will need to satisfy the following requirements in order to proceed:

• A Windows 8 compatible system
• A Windows 8 64-bit installation media. 32-bit is not supported.
• A UEFI v2.0+ compliant PC. Check your chipset manufacturer/firmware documentation.
• A blank, partition-free, hard disk for installation.

   Warning

• Disabling UEFI will make the system unbootable as there is no MBR on the disks.
• You CANNOT make a sector-by-sector copy of GPT disks. The Disk and Partition GUIDs will no longer be unique. This must never happen. You can make a sector-by-sector copy of the contents of ESP or basic data partitions.

Here's How:

1. Do step 2 or 3 below depending on what installation Media you are using.

2. If using a 64-bit Windows 8 or 8.1 Installation DVD with UEFI

A) Insert the DVD, restart the computer, and go to step 4 below.
NOTE: If you are unsure that your 64-bit DVD has UEFI support, then see OPTION TWO here: Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 ISO - Download or Create


3. If using a 64-bit Windows 8 or 8.1 Installation USB Flash Drive with UEFI

A) If you have not already, you will need to create a Windows 8 or 8.1 installation bootable USB flash drive with UEFI from either a Windows 8 installation ISO or DVD.

B) Connect the USB, restart the computer, and go to step 4 below.

   Tip

Enable or Disable Always Automatically Boot PC from USB Drive in Windows To Go Startup Options

How to Boot from a USB Drive within Windows 8 and 8.1

How to Boot from a USB Drive on Surface

4. Press whatever key (ex: F11) it shows to boot to your motherboard's boot menu, and select to boot from the listed UEFI DVD or UEFI USB. (see screenshot below)



5. Do steps 2 to 7 in the tutorial at the link below, and return.

Clean Install - Windows 8

6. Delete all partitions/volumes on the disk # (ex: Disk 0) that you want to install Windows 8 as UEFI on until that disk # shows as unallocated space. (see screenshot below)



7. When you are finished, click/tap on New, Apply (for full size of disk), and OK. (see screenshot above)

8. You will notice that the disk has now been formatted as GPT with 4 partitions. Select the "Primary" partition 4, and click/tap on Next. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: You might receive a "Windows can't be installed on drive 0" warning, but as long as you can click on the Next button, you're fine.

   Note

The 4 partitions are:

• Paritition 1 - Recovery
• Partition 2 - System - The EFI System partition that contains the NTLDR, HAL, Boot.txt, and other files that are needed to boot the system, such as drivers.
• Partition 3 - MSR - The Microsoft Reserved (MSR) partition that reserves space on each disk drive for subsequent use by operating system software.
• Partition 4 - Primary - Where Windows is to be installed to.
  
  It is imperative that these 4 partitions remain in the exact order as they are

9. You can now finish doing the steps in either tutorial below.

• Steps 9 to 21 here - Clean Install - Windows 8
• Same steps 9 to 21 as above, but also steps 4 to 6 afterwards here - Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade

10. That's it. You have successfully installed Windows 8 on a UEFI system.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Clean Install Windows on a MSATA (SSD) Drive
• Create a Bootable UEFI USB Flash Drive for Installing Windows 7. Windows 8, and Windows 8.1
• How to Install Windows 7 Using "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface" (UEFI)
• Create Bootable USB or DVD with Windows 8 ISO
• How to Do a Clean Install of Windows 8 or Windows 8.1
• How to Do a Clean Install with Windows 8 Upgrade
• Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk - Windows 7 Forums
• How to Download and Run the "Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant"
• How to Create or Download a Windows 8 Upgrade ISO
• How to Enable or Disable Secure Boot in UEFI
• How to Check if Secure Boot is Enabled or Disabled in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Check if Windows is Booted in UEFI or Legacy BIOS Mode
• How to Boot to UEFI Firmware Settings from inside Windows 8
• How to Do a Repair Install of Windows 8 without Losing Anything
• How to Upgrade from Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista, or XP to Windows 8 or 8.1
• How to Open Device Manager During Installation of Windows 8 and 8.1

External Links:

• Windows and GPT FAQ
• Unified Extensible Firmware Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• UEFI and Windows
• Technical Note: UEFI BIOS vs. Legacy BIOS - YouTube

 

[Criss Moon]

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

 

[mistapsn]

Hi, I bought a T440s and am trying to install Win 8 in UEFI mode. I have an original Win 8 DVD (system builder) and tried it via USB as well. My problem: There's no UEFI DVD/USB option in the boot menu (F12) - only DVD/USB without UEFI. However if I put the DVD/USB in my friends MacBook Pro the EFI option is shown. So the problem is probably the T440s.
I tried a lot of different settings in the BIOS:

UEFI only/both
CSM enabled/disabled
Secure Boot on/off
Quick Boot on/off

Furthermorem, the T440s is equipped with a 500 GB Samsung EVO SSD. MBR/GPT should not be the problem, since it should still show the UEFI option in the boot menu even if the SSD would be partitioned in MBR.
What am I doing wrong?

 

[Brink]

Hello Mistapsn, and welcome to Eight Forums.

If you use the settings below, do you see the same partitions that are in screenshot under step 8 at that point? If so, then it's installing as UEFI.

UEFI only
CSM disabled
Secure Boot off (you can turn on after installation has finished)
Quick Boot off (you can turn on after installation has finished)

 

[bigbwb]

Hello,
Recently assembled a brand new PC using the asrock Q1900DC-ITX Motherboard. I have a brand new Samsung 850 SSD 120GB, 4GB ram, etc.

I have a Windows Enterprise 64 bit ISO file. The Motherboard is UEFI. I followed the step by step directions in this tutorial. I used Rufus on a 16GB flash drive. All went well.

I made the adjustments in the BIOS to boot to the UEFI USB drive, restarted, then windows begins to install. Problem is, I only get through the 2nd step where Windows is beginning to install (with the green check marks etc). I then get various errors including 0x80070057 and this one most often 0xC0000005 - verify installation sources are accessible.....

Ive been trying various things over the last 3 days with NO luck. Any suggestions? Also, will a bootable windows DVD work in my situation (with UEFI BIOS)?

Im getting desperate lately

Thanks,
Brandon

 

[Chrysalis]

Cannot get this to work on my laptop.

It seems I can only boot off the usb stick enabling legacy mode.

When I make the partitions in the setup it keeps making MBR on my SSD not GPT.

If I follow the guide the USB isnt bootable at all.

--edit--

Was due to the filesystem i had selected ntfs.

However fat32 has a 4 gig filesize limit so I ended up having to split my wim file to make it work with fat32.

The windows installer is an odd beast, here is some anomalies I have had with 2 usb sticks.

Originally both my usb sticks were MBR yet one would not allow partitioning MBR drives, the other would not allow GPT, I could never find the difference between the two to find out why. I was able to install GPT win8.1 on my desktop tho using GPT with the fast usb stick (which was blocking MBR installation).

My new laptop is GPT, however the fast USB stick was creating MBR partitions. This is why I had to make a GPT USB stick, because the installer will only create GPT partitions on my laptop when the USB stick booted from GPT.

 

[hillary]

i av tried to use a bootable usb bt thia is wat i get on y screen.
warnin: partition pri:1 FS OB has CHS=492-150-42 not 491-254-63.....

 

[ocpelon01]

i cannot begin to thank you i followed your steps on here and was able to reinstall a fresh windows 8 which i havent been able too in over a month and was told by microsoft was not possible. my cup runneth over