Windows Setup Gpt Partition Style

Posted on by



  • The GPT drive format lets you set up drives that are larger than 4 terabytes (TB), and lets you easily set up as many partitions as you need. Reformatting the drive using a different partition style. To wipe and convert the drive by using Windows Setup. Turn off the PC, and put in the Windows.
  • After Windows 10 finally boots up, you can now check up if Windows 10 is installed on your GPT disk partition by following tips here: Boot into Windows Open 'Disk Management'. You see three partitions including the EFI System Partition. Right-click the disk select 'Properties 'Volumes'.

To help you completely fix the error 'G

GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). MBR disks do not support more than four partitions on each disk. The MBR partition method is not recommended for disks larger than two terabytes (TB). You can change a disk from a GPT to an MBR partition style as long as the disk is empty and contains no volumes. And your system disk needs to be GPT style. GPT & MBR Disk Structures. Microsoft Windows uses two partition structures to read data from your hard disk. MBR – Master Boot Record; GPT – GUID Partition Table; MBR Partition Style. The MBR is an old partition style on Windows-based systems, it was introduced in 1983 with IBM PC DOS 2.0. I then disabled the Secure Boot and enabled the Legacy OS to boot from the flash drive that contains my Windows 7 installer. When I try install Windows 7 on my new partition, a message appears saying 'Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.'

Workable SolutionsStep-by-step Troubleshooting
Part 1. Why You Get This Error

1. You're doing a fresh install...
2. You selected the largest partition to install...Full steps

Part 2. Solutions to Not in Recommended OrderAt the Windows 10 setup 'Partition Screen', press Shift-F10 > type diskpart > type list disk...Full steps

Windows 10 Installation Error of Partitions Not in Recommended Order

'When clean install Windows 10, I found 'recommended order' error report for a GPT disk, it says 'the partitions on the disk selected for installation are not in the recommended order. For additional information about installing to GPT disk, go to the Microsoft website...do you want to proceed with installation?' Now should I listen to the warning or just ignore it? How to properly deal with GPT disk partitions, not in recommended order in Windows 10? I need some real advice.'

When do you receive the partition error warning very likely?

Case 1. You are doing a fresh install, from a Windows 10 ISO image or are installing Windows to an existing hard disk that had an operating system previously installed.

Case 2. You have selected the largest available partition to install, likely the same partition Windows 7 or 8 was previously installed. Other partitions, such as an ESP partition, are ordered earlier in the list.

Fix Partitions on GPT Disk Are Not in Recommended Order

For a bold attempt, many people would choose to ignore the warning and continue with the installation. Just select the partition that had Windows 7 or Windows 8 previously installed on. It turns out Windows 10 will install correctly, even with the error, not a single partition lost. However, it's not recommended regarding the future partition error occurrence and the possibility to fix it. Deleting the partition and consolidate the disk can solve this error.

Windows Setup Gpt Partition Style

1. At the Windows 10 Setup 'Partition Screen', press'Shift-F10'. This opens a DOS prompt.
2. Type this command: diskpart.
3. Type List Disk.

Note which disk is your largest. This is likely the one where your existing operating system is installed. If you have SD card slots, they will show on the list. Ignore them. For most people, DISK 0 is the disk you care about.

4. Type Select Disk=0 to activate your disk.
5. Type List Partition

You could confirm this matches what the Windows Setup screen showed. My disk looks like this illustration. In this case, some of the partitions were from Windows 8. When Windows 10 upgraded, it adds its own new partitions rather than risk damaging the older ones. The space occupied by these is negligible:

6. Type Clean

One command does it all. There is no warning.

7. Type List Partitions

expected results: 'There are no partitions on this disk to show'

8. Type exit, closing DiskPart
9. Type exit, closing the command window

Return to the already-in-progress Windows 10 setup, where the old partitions still show. Continue with these steps:

10. Click 'Refresh'

Note drive 0 shows all unallocated space, all on one partition.

11. Click '*new', Apply, accepting the recommended disk size

12. Click 'OK' on 'To ensure Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions.' Allow it to do so.

Continue with your Windows install.

Take more control of Windows 10 Disk Partitions

When making Windows 10 clean installation, you may encounter embarrassments: low disk space available to install Windows 10 system and data, the partition needs to be formatted, etc. To correct the mentioned issues, you can apply EaseUS free partition manager to increase a volume by shrinking its neighboring one with its resize/move partition feature, format a partition to a certain file system, convert file system between FAT and NTFS, convert MBR disk to GPT disk, wipe partition or clear junk files to optimize Windows 10 performance.

-->

Create custom partition layouts for your hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), and other drives when deploying Windows to Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)–based devices.

Note

If you use a custom partition layout on Windows 10 for desktop editions (Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Education), update the push-button recovery script so the recovery tools can recreate the custom partition layout when needed.

Partition Requirements

When you deploy Windows to a UEFI-based device, you must format the hard drive that includes the Windows partition by using a GUID partition table (GPT) file system. Additional drives may use either the GPT or the master boot record (MBR) file format.

A GPT drive may have up to 128 partitions.

Each partition can have a maximum of 18 exabytes (~18.8 million terabytes) of space.

System partition

The device must contain a system partition. On GPT drives, this is known as the EFI System Partition, or the ESP. This partition is usually stored on the primary hard drive. The device boots to this partition.

The minimum size of this partition is 100 MB, and must be formatted using the FAT32 file format.

This partition is managed by the operating system, and should not contain any other files, including Windows RE tools.

Note

For Advanced Format 4K Native drives (4-KB-per-sector) drives, the minimum size is 260 MB, due to a limitation of the FAT32 file format. The minimum partition size of FAT32 drives is calculated as sector size (4KB) x 65527 = 256 MB.

Advanced Format 512e drives are not affected by this limitation, because their emulated sector size is 512 bytes. 512 bytes x 65527 = 32 MB, which is less than the 100 MB minimum size for this partition.

Microsoft reserved partition (MSR)

Beginning in Windows 10, the size of the MSR is 16 MB.

Add an MSR to each GPT drive to help with partition management. The MSR is a reserved partition that does not receive a partition ID. It cannot store user data.

Other utility partitions

Any other utility partitions not managed by Windows must be located before the Windows, data, and recovery image partitions. This allows end users to perform actions such as resizing the Windows partition without affecting system utilities.

Protect end users from accidentally modifying utility partitions by identifying them using a GPT attribute. This prevents these partitions from appearing in File Explorer.

To set partitions as utility partitions

To verify that system and utility partitions exist

Windows

Windows partition

  • The partition must have at least 20 gigabytes (GB) of drive space for 64-bit versions, or 16 GB for 32-bit versions.
  • The Windows partition must be formatted using the NTFS file format.
  • The Windows partition must have 16 GB of free space after the user has completed the Out Of Box Experience (OOBE) and Automatic Maintenance has completed.

Recovery tools partition

This partition must be at least 300 MB.

The Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) tools require additional free space:

  • A minimum of 52 MB is required but 250 MB is recommended, to accomodate future updates, especially with custom partition layouts.

When calculating free space, note:

  • The recovery image, winre.wim, is typically between 250-300MB, depending on what drivers, languages, and customizations you add.
  • The file system itself can take up additional space. For example, NTFS may reserve 5-15MB or more on a 750MB partition.

This partition must use the Type ID: DE94BBA4-06D1-4D40-A16A-BFD50179D6AC.

The recovery tools should be in a separate partition than the Windows partition to support automatic failover and to support booting partitions encrypted with Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption.

We recommend that you place this partition immediately after the Windows partition. This allows Windows to modify and recreate the partition later if future updates require a larger recovery image.

Data partitions

The recommended partition layout for Windows 10 does not include data partitions. However, if data partitions are required, they should be placed after the Windows RE partition. This allows future updates to Windows RE to grow the Windows RE partition by shrinking the Windows partition.

This layout makes it more difficult for end users to remove the data partition and merge the space with the Windows partition. To do so, the Windows RE partition must be moved to the end of the unused space reclaimed from the data partition, so that the Windows partition can be extended.

Windows 10 does not include functionality or utility to facilitate this process. However, manufacturers can develop and provide such a utility if PCs are shipped with data partitions.

Partition layout

The default partition layout for UEFI-based PCs is: a system partition, an MSR, a Windows partition, and a recovery tools partition.

This layout lets you use Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption through both Windows and through the Windows Recovery Environment.

Sample files: configure drive partitions by using Windows PE and DiskPart scripts

For image-based deployment, boot the PC to Windows PE, and then use the DiskPart tool to create the partition structures on your destination PCs.

Note

In these DiskPart examples, the partitions are assigned the letters: System=S, Windows=W, and Recovery=R. The MSR partition does not receive a drive letter.

Change the Windows drive letter to a letter that’s near the end of the alphabet, such as W, to avoid drive letter conflicts. Do not use X, because this drive letter is reserved for Windows PE. After the device reboots, the Windows partition is assigned the letter C, and the other partitions don’t receive drive letters.

If you reboot, Windows PE reassigns disk letters alphabetically, starting with the letter C, without regard to the configuration in Windows Setup. This configuration can change based on the presence of different drives, such as USB flash drives.

The following steps describe how to partition your hard drives and prepare to apply images. You can use the code in the sections that follow to complete these steps.

To partition hard drives and prepare to apply images

  1. Save the following code in the as a text file (CreatePartitions-UEFI.txt) on a USB flash drive.

  1. Use Windows PE to boot the destination PC.

  2. Clean and partition the drive. In this example, F is the letter of the USB flash drive.

  1. If you use a custom partition layout on Windows 10 for desktop editions, update the push-button recovery script so the recovery tools can recreate the custom partition layout when needed.

Important

To avoid bare metal recovery boot issues due to partition size, it is recommended that manufacturers allow the bare metal recovery feature’s auto generation script to create the partition used for the recovery WIM. If manufacturer’s wish to use a custom DISKPART script for partition creation, the recommended minimum partition size is 990MB and a minimum of 250MB of free space.

Style

Next steps

Cannot Install Windows Gpt Partition

Use a deployment script to apply the Windows images on the newly created partitions. For more information, see Capture and Apply Windows, System, and Recovery Partitions.

Remove Gpt Partition Windows 10

Related topics