Windows 8 cannot be installed to this disk

Your harddisk has the wrong type of master boot record (mbr) for win8.

First you need to partition the drive.

http://lifehacker.com/5840387/how-to-dual+boot-windows-...

Guide for the dual boot ^

Hello,

Thanks for the quick response!

I had already partitioned the drive and formatted it. However, it is when I try to install Windows 8 from my usb flash drive, I get that error message.

I had done some research, of course, and supposedly if the installed OS is Windows 7, then just clicking on the next button during installation (ignoring the error msg) should allow Windows 8 to install. However, that did not work.

Any thoughts at this point?

Thanks, in advance, for any help.

Assuming you don't need any data on the drive, delete each partition using the installer. Then click next with the unpartitioned space selected. This will create the required GPT for EFI boot.

If you do need data, make sure you boot the installer using the legacy BIOS boot method and your installation will be able to proceed on an MBR disk.

Because as said, the old format of the drive is NTFS file structure.
Windows 8 wants a GPT file format structure on the drive.
Partition the drive, format that part of the drive to a Gpt format.
Start windows 8 install and select the partition of the drive you formatted to GPT file table, you created.