the selected disk has an mbr partition table. on efi systems, windows can only be installed on gpt disks

[boomplatinum]

i got the windows 10 upgrade from windows update, downloaded it and installed it. went to microsoft website downloaded windows 10 to put onto a usb drive. before performing a clean install i partitioned my drive and dropped around 230gb of stuff on it (967gb total drive, partitioned 280). when i tried to format the drive i encountered this issue

"windows cannot be installed to the disk. the selected disk has an mbr partition table. on efi systems, windows can only be installed to gpt disks.".

this is pretty frustrating, ive never had a problem like this before. i dont know if the problem is my hdd or my usb drive or my bios. i tried deleting the partition and then pressing new but i continue to get the same error. i tried looking around but i cant make any sense of the posts with this error being solved. one of the posts says to change usb efi to gpt in bios but i dont think that option is in my bios (i can post a picture of bios if needed). another option is to clean the entire disk with cmd but i dont want to lose the other partition. can someone please help me out?

 

[Shaun o]

It`s very simple.
What the error is saying is that the format of the partition is of the Ntfs file structure.
That uses a section of the partition or hard drive where it stores a map of the drive structure and the type of format it is in.
And the information to boot an Os, MBR for short is Master Boot Record.

Windows 10 is asking you to format the Ntfs partition to a Gpt style partition.
You must do this in windows set up before you click next.

If you look down at the options on the window where it asks you what drive you want to install windows to.
There are advanced options to format the drive or partition first, where you can also choose how, or in what formatting the Partition or drive should be formatted to.
Select Gpt and format.

So if you select GPT file system, and then format the drive.
Then return back to the main window and select the drive you wish to install windows 10 to.
Then click next it will begin to install windows 10 OS via the set up.

Be aware also that by having a drive partitioned can cause problems, because in most cases only one formatting type can be present on the whole drive, since you have it partitioned Probably to Ntfs windows 10 may not like the fact that the other Partition is in ntfs format and file structure.
That may be causing the error since the second partition of the same drive relies on the primary or first partition where the MBR exists.

 

[boomplatinum]

before i refreshed and saw your your reply i was looking at ankits reply here http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1723461/windows-installed-disk-selected-disk-mbr-partition-table-efi-systems-windows.html i couldnt find any efi settings he was talking about but i decided to change boot order of everything. usb was first a storage drive (full) was second and main drive was last, i dont know why it was like this, i never played with the settings before but i changed the main drive first kept storage second and usb to third and it worked fine.... the hd was ntfs like you said. is the delete option and format option the same when you come to that window when installing windows?

 

[Shaun o]

The option is mostly used when you install a new drive.
when a drive comes from the factory in it`s anti static bag it has no formatting.
So the advanced options are used to select the formatting type for the drive Ntfs or Gpt file format.
You then format the drive.

If you just tried to install windows 10 to a raw drive it would in most cases give an error or complain that it cannot install windows to that drive in question. because all drives have to be formatted before any install of an os.

Windows 10 may prefer a GPT type format, GPT formatting is used for drives up to 2TB in size as the Ntfs format can only cope and format drives of a set size of say 1TB in size. anything above 1TB and an Ntfs format of a drive or partition size would fail because the Ntfs file system has a limit on the size of drive, it`s storage capacity it can format. So if you used an Ntfs format on say a 3Tb drive it would only see and format 1Tb of storage space, the other 2Tb of space on the drive would be ignored and not formatted.
You would have to create for example on a 3Tb drive three partitions of 1Tb if you wished to use all of the drive capacity with an Ntfs type formatting of the drive.


Where as a Gpt format would format the whole 3Tb or storage capacity of the drive, it`s overall size.


If you wanted to change a Ntfs partition to a Gpt you would use the advanced options selecting Gpt as the files system to lay down on the HD or a partition then format it.
Then as said select the drive in where you want to install windows 10 to, then click next to avoid errors.

Hope it gives you a few tips to remember, when it comes to drives and formatting them. And helps.