MBR partition table? Windows 7 won't install on hard drive that previously had win7.

Anonymous
2016-02-13T12:25:28+00:00

(long story) Alright, so I have had this same exact harddrive for a while, and out of nowhere, I get a message: Microsoft Windows has stopped responding. I think, oh ****! I gotta restart it! And so I hard-restart it and now windows won't load. I get the bios, but not the OS. So I try to save my files and reinstall windows7 by using a linux usb to save my stuff, except that doesnt work. So I accept my fate, use GParted to format the partition to NTFS and then I restart and boot up from the windows install disc. And I go to install windows on the empty partition (also I guess I should mention there is another partition that's 100mb and says sytem reserved, I never touched that one) and I get this and I quote "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks." and thats it. And the weird thing is, I installed win7 on that SAME harddrive before with now problems. So did my Hard drive poop out on me? Is windows just being a butt? Help pls, I NEED my computer, I am in a programming for game design class and I need my PC in order to make my end of the year project. (Oh, I guess I should also mention I am currently using a Lubuntu usb stick to type this... if that is relevant at all...) Oh, and the windows version is 7 ultimate.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-02-14T06:21:46+00:00

    ok so i dont have a UEFI dvd option in mu bios boot menu... would it say uefi? thats whats confusing me, i see no uefi anywhere...  And i dont have a specific question because until this point, i had never heard of uefi. So i dont know what to ask about it. Maybe you could point me to an article of some sort that explains uefi?

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  2. Greg Carmack 24,780 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-02-14T05:37:59+00:00

    Please ask specific questions then about what you don't understand.

    Put the DVD in the drive, power up PC while pressing the BIOS Boot Menu Key, look for UEFI DVD drive choice and choose that.  Then you should be able to delete the partitions and either create and format new, or just click Next to let the installer create and format for you and begin.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-14T05:09:53+00:00

    i did delete the partitions in the windows setup program on the disk... to be honest the UEFI stuff is confusing me.

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  4. Greg Carmack 24,780 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-02-14T04:57:40+00:00

    DVD should always show up as a UEFI device as long as UEFI is not disabled in BIOS setup/UEFI firmware. 

     Did you do the zero fill yet or wipe the drive?  This should clear the partition table and reset the formatting to GPT.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-02-14T04:53:44+00:00

    well im using a dvd... so howdoes a dvd play into this

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