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I'm in a situation where I want to reformat my main SSD hard drive (500GB) to run Windows 10. Currently it is running linux (ubuntu). I have a bootable Windows 10 install USB, however when I try to install it, I am presented with an error saying that Windows 10 cannot be installed on the disk because it is an MBR disk and it needs to be a GPT-formatted drive.

I found this question but it does not explicitly say that I can run Windows 10 on it.

Sorry if this is redundant, but I'm just not familiar with what MBR and GPT (and UEFI) even mean, and how to apply it to my current situation.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Edit:

My ideal situation is to dual-boot linux/windows. Secondary hope is that I can at least get windows working again.

AndyPerlitch
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  • https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-setup-installing-using-the-mbr-or-gpt-partition-style – joeqwerty Apr 06 '20 at 03:17

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Essentially, you can boot two ways nowadays, legacy BIOS or UEFI. Legacy requires the boot disk have an MBR partition table, while UEFI requires it have a GPT partition table. Since your disk is MBR now (according to Windows anyway), you know you're booting legacy at the moment. Most likely what's happening is when you boot from your Windows 10 install USB, you're booting it UEFI mode, so it assumes you want a UEFI-bootable installation, then it sees an MBR partition table on the disk and says "this isn't going to work".

You should be able to boot the USB installer in legacy mode. Usually there will be two separate options in your BIOS boot order configuration, or your BIOS boot menu, one to boot the USB in legacy and another to boot it UEFI. Boot the Windows installer legacy and everything should work fine without having to erase your disk and switch to GPT.

Alternatively, if you want to re-do your disk as GPT, you could follow the link in the comment that joeqwerty left for you. All data will be erased.

Stingray
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  • I see what I think are the two different modes. My usb is sandisk and i see "UEFI Sandisk" and "Sandisk". When i tried the latter, for whatever reason it just boots ubuntu from my SSD... any suggestions? – AndyPerlitch Apr 06 '20 at 05:38
  • Yep, those are the two modes and if you're booting it in UEFI then that's definitely your problem. Is your bootable USB a genuine Microsoft USB installer (that came with a retail Windows purchase), or did you create it yourself? If you create the bootable USB with the media creation tool that Microsoft provides, it should successfully boot either way. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO – Stingray Apr 06 '20 at 14:48
  • ok yea i made the bootable usb by following a tutorial i found on google (basically download the iso from windows site, unzip it and copy the contents into the usb drive). I’ll check out that link you posted. – AndyPerlitch Apr 07 '20 at 02:26