Installing Windows on disks larger than 2TB

Some friend raised an interesting topic: How do we boot Windows 7/8 on disks larger than 2TB?

My first guess would be simple: select "Repair your computer" before clicking "Install now" button, enter command prompt to load the disk driver & prepare disk with DISKPART.

But soon I realized installing & booting from disk larger than 2TB is not as easy as "pre-create partitions on a GPT disk in advance".

Short Answer

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After couple of unsuccessful attempts I finally made it. The secret is UEFI boot.

References

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• Windows support for hard disks that are larger than 2 TB

• Overview of FAT, HPFS, and NTFS File Systems

• Frequently asked questions about the GUID Partitioning Table disk architecture

• UEFI Firmware

Key Info

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• GPT vs MBR: GPT for disks larger than 2TB is a must. Disks using MBR partitioning table can only support up to 2TB address space.

• BIOS vs UEFI: All versions of Windows support BIOS firmware. On modern mainboards, UEFI became an standard option.

• 2TB is NOT a limitation defined by NTFS. Actually NTFS can support up to 2^64 bytes which is 16 Exabyte.

• Support Matrix:

DISKPART?

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Unfortunately preparing partitions with diskpart.exe to is NOT a feasible option because:

• Windows will automatically convert it back to MBR if it’s a GPT disk without partition;

• or refuse to install on a GPT disk with one or more partitions.

Using Linux utilities such as gparted is all the same. Windows setup program simply incompatible with BIOS+GPT combination.

Resolution

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The correct solution is to enable UEFI boot support in BIOS setting and setup with modern Windows ISO such as Windows 8.1.

Note: if running on Hyper-V, UEFI is only available for Generation 2 VM on latest hypervisors:

Simply select the empty disk & hit “Next”

Here comes the wonder!

Tricks

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If you see this in UEFI boot, it means the ISO is corrupted, even if it works with BIOS boot. Try to download a new ISO (or copy the entire \efi folder from a working ISO. Unverified.).

If you can’t see the prompt while booting with setup CD,

Then do some tweak to the ISO. Navigate to \efi\microsoft\boot, swap file names:

Sometimes Secure Boot prevents boot on older ISO such as Vista/Win7. Uncheck it:

Wish it’s useful for you.

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 20, 2016
  Boot using UEFI ....solved the problem for me. On a 4TB SSHD.