I have bought Seagate Barracuda 3tb hard drive. When I start to install windows 8 x64 on that it tells me that
Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style (GUID Partition Table) type disk
It tells me that at first you must convert disk type to MBR (Master Boot Record) type which does not allow you to use more then 2TB space. On the other hand I need to install windows on the 3tb space!
Eventually I found out that if my BIOS is not UEFI BIOS I can not install windows on that GPT type disk. all this means that my BIOS does not support UEFI.
My motherboard is ASUS P5LD2-X/1333, my CPU is Pentium D 820 it is dual core! So whats wrong with my PC? Should I upgrade my hardware? or should I upgrade my BIOS as software? I downloaded the latest BIOS of my motherboard at ASUS.com but it still does not supports UEFI. What should I do? Should I upgrade my chip on my motherboard?
Best Answer
As you correctly stated, you will require a UEFI BIOS to use the GPT partition scheme on Windows.
The only way that you can install Windows on your 3TB drive with your current hardware is to format the disk using MBR and use two partitions for your data - my suggestion is 200GB for your O/S and applications, then split the remaining space depending on how much data you have (e.g. movies, music, documents, photos) - e.g. if you have a lot of movies, create a large partition for that and use the rest of the drive for your other data.
If you want to run a UEFI BIOS and use the GPT partition scheme, you will need to buy a new motherboard, CPU and RAM as a minimum. Your GPU - if you have one - can most likely be moved across to your new board, though you may also require a new PSU if your current model cannot provide the more up-to-date CPU power (the P5LD2-X has a 4-pin power socket, where most current models have 6- or 8-pin sockets).