Is it best to install Windows 7,8,10 in UEFI mode ?

zola25 said:
That's not been my experience at all, when clean installing either Windows 8.1 or 10 in UEFI mode, the install has taken care of this for me.
Click to expand...

But not in mine.

I am only taking one particular PC into qaccount I grantr you, with an early EFI, a Gigabyte 970 of one sort or another, and in EFI mode, It failed entirely to see the SSD that I wanted to use, but it would see the 3TB drive
In non EFI mode, it was both.

Oh hang on, it did this one an MSI one too... although in that mobo it was Windows 8 mode and Legacy mode to be more precise.

I could just never get it to even see the SSD in EFI or Windows 8 mode to even boot to!

That said, it was the same with the flash disk I used to boot from, and that was NOT GTP formatted either, so had it been, then perhaps I could have maybe? Maybe I could have got into the setuo, wiped and created the partitions necessary and then the drive would show up ion the BIOS? No, because the drive simply didnt show up in EFI mode and so it makes no difference what way it was formatted, becausse it could still not boot from a drive that it did not see???

Perhaps the boards simply did not like that SSD in EFI mode?

Im going to have a look into this now that I know a bit more?
 
^ It may well be a case of the installer behaving differently with certain SSDs perhaps. Even the way the motherboard BIOS handles EFI/CSM modes could have an impact. I probably should have put more thought into this than a blanket statement saying it would work - I think I may have just been fortunate!

Was your flash installation media formatted as FAT32? Took me a while to realise that I couldn't do a UEFI install from a USB stick that was NTFS formatted.
 
Yes, flashdrive was both FAT32 and GTP - no other way seems to work.

Also, I found this when needing to fix my Linx... I have chucked Win 10 onto that purely to have the Tablet mode only.

Why Microsoft seems to think that there is any real future in Windows as a tablet OS is beyond me... I think that is also why Windows 10 is the way it is... Going back, but still fighting with those ridiculous apps.

But anyway I disgress
 
I forgot to do this when I clean installed windows 10 on my system. What are the advantages? Is it worth the effort of wiping and reinstalling everything again?
 
No-One said:
I forgot to do this when I clean installed windows 10 on my system. What are the advantages? Is it worth the effort of wiping and reinstalling everything again?
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Support for large drives, many more partitions, more robust recovery in the event of disk/file-system issues.

I wouldn't bother wiping and restoring just for GPT, but next time you do a reinstall for any reason, then it's a good time to remember to do it. It's one of those things where it's better to have it than not, but not worth the hassle just for that one thing alone.

I did try a lot of various tricks and software that claimed to be able to convert from MBR to GPT without re-installing, and to be honest they are a pain, and don't work well. In the end it was simpler and quicker to wipe and reinstall everything from scratch. Plus you end up with a clean system rather than something mangled with a few years of use.
 
Hello!
This is all suddenly very pertinent for me!
I'm just installing Windows 7 from disk on a newly built system and suddenly discovering this UEFI thingy.
I've been following various guides like this one for installing with UEFI...

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...e-firmware-interface-install-windows-7-a.html

But when I'm at around stage 7/8 of the above guide I find that my chosen drive has only been formatted with TWO partitions.

I think I've done things correctly up to that point, ie choosing UEFI - DVD drive in the boot order selection menu.
I gathered that that was all you really had to do and then the installation would do everything properly. But isn't formatting into just 2 partitions the old, pre-UEFI way?
What am I missing?

Thanks
 
No-One said:
I forgot to do this when I clean installed windows 10 on my system. What are the advantages? Is it worth the effort of wiping and reinstalling everything again?
Click to expand...

No, dont bother.

When you do a fresh install, it may be worth a shot, but other than that, I personally feel that the hassles outwiegh the benefits.
 
jamieboo said:
Hello!
This is all suddenly very pertinent for me!
I'm just installing Windows 7 from disk on a newly built system and suddenly discovering this UEFI thingy.
I've been following various guides like this one for installing with UEFI...

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...e-firmware-interface-install-windows-7-a.html

But when I'm at around stage 7/8 of the above guide I find that my chosen drive has only been formatted with TWO partitions.

I think I've done things correctly up to that point, ie choosing UEFI - DVD drive in the boot order selection menu.
I gathered that that was all you really had to do and then the installation would do everything properly. But isn't formatting into just 2 partitions the old, pre-UEFI way?
What am I missing?

Thanks
Click to expand...

The 2 partitions are the usual Windows 7+ standard ones, so its clearly not done it in EUFI mode at all.

This is what had me going too!

Drives that were above 2TB automagically went to GTP and below went to normal.

The drive that you are installing to needs to be initialised as GTP.

I read in a post up there somewhere, that Windows does it for you, but I can honestly say that I have never been able to get windows to do it at all, on a smaller drive than 2TB

I use SSDs to boot onto and unless I prepare the drive as GTP before hand, and unless the Flashdrive Iam booting from, has been setup as GTP, then during the install, the Disk I setup will be MBR and not GTP at all.

So, thats what I would do... Get the disk you want to plop Windows onto, and delete everything off it, and initialise it as GTP, and then yank it out and install onto it nice and fresh and it should be GTP after that!

Should...
 
Hmm. That's a bit irritating. But thanks for getting back to me FatRakoon.
Trouble is I don't know how to initialise the SSD as GTP.

I did read somewhere that even if a UEFI boot is selected, it won't actually do a UEFI boot if CSM (Compatibility Support Module) is enabled. Similarly UEFI boot won't work unless Secure Boot is enabled. Does any of that ring any bells? I don't want to go tinkering with unfamiliar settings unless I'm sure it'll help.
What do you think?
Thanks
 
A lot of software (eg Windows Disk Management) won't show you the three partitions - MSR is hidden. Diskpart and other more in-depth tools will show it and will indicate what is GPT.

Many UEFI bioses will support automatic setting for CSM, so the CSM only activates when it is needed.
 
jamieboo said:
Hmm. That's a bit irritating. But thanks for getting back to me FatRakoon.
Trouble is I don't know how to initialise the SSD as GTP.
Click to expand...

I use Minitool Partition Wizard.. Its free and brilliant, plus its win 10 compatible too.

Just plug that SSD into any other PC, run that program, wipe the disk and select INITIALISE as GTP, and you're laughing.

You can then install, with EUFI mode enabled of course, and the disk should be seen as a GTP disk and everything will be spanky!
 
FatRakoon said:
I use Minitool Partition Wizard.. Its free and brilliant, plus its win 10 compatible too.

Just plug that SSD into any other PC, run that program, wipe the disk and select INITIALISE as GTP, and you're laughing.

You can then install, with EUFI mode enabled of course, and the disk should be seen as a GTP disk and everything will be spanky!
Click to expand...

You don't need another program, use the windows boot media and use the command line util diskpart to clean the drive. Once done it's like a brand new drive. Then just install windows in uefi mode
 
Thanks folks
A bit of tinkering and it seemd to format correctly.
Annoyingly I tinkered with a few settings, so I don't know exactly what solved the problem. Though it was very possibly in the storage settings clicking SSD rather than HDD for each of my drives (which are indeed SSDs).
Anyway, Windows seems to be installed!
Thanks for your help! :)
 
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