Windows 8 install problem

[Blarg]

I currently have Windows vista and am trying to install windows 8.

I can't install it while Vista is running (I could if I had windows 7) so I have disconnected all my hard drives except the one I want to install windows 8 onto and then set my DVD with the install disk to be the first loaded in BIOS.

When I try to install windows 8 it tells me it can't install because my hard drive is a GPT format. Google tells me I can fix this by changing my drives to UEFI format in my bios but I don't think that is possible for me in Vista. I don't see any legacy/secureboot/UEFI option in vista when I load up bios.

At the same screen where it tells me windows 8 can't install due to GPT it also gives me the option to reformat my drive. Will reformating allow the install to work or will I just delete all my stuff and still have the problem of the drive being GPT.

I have everything backed up so it's not a huge deal it just takes a long time to transfer over a terabyte of material back and forth.

[Sonomaa]

you will very likely need to reformat the drive and lose everything on it.
thats always the best way to install windows as well, a clean wipe is the best

[Niya]

Is that drive you're trying to install on larger than 2TB? If not it's kind of weird that it was formatted with GPT and not MBR, since you need GPT only for drives >2TB or if you want to boot in UEFI mode...
And since you have vista installed i'd guess that PC is a bit older, so it gets even weirder...

Reformatting should make installing work. Btw, did you really mean windows 8 or win8.1 update? For a fresh and clean install it would definitely be the best choice to install the latter straight since the jump from 8 to 8.1 is like an upgrade install (like updating vista to 7 oder 7 to 8). A few weeks ago MS finally made official ISO images for 8.1 with update available for download without any annoying hassle, so i'd really recommend you install with one of those.

[Blarg]

It's a 3tb drive. The PC is older but I've upgraded probably everything along the way I just never bothered to upgrade the OS.

The box says it's windows 8.1 full version but when I was on the microsoft store earlier it seemed like the .1 update was a 50mb or so file I could download and not really a large upgrade. Maybe that small file was an update TO windows 8.1 and not an update to windows 8 that makes it into 8.1 That seems confusing but either way I bought 8.1 and that's what I'm trying to install.

Anyway, I'm going to just format like you guys said so if you don't hear back from me the computer has either failed or I have killed myself out of frustration. You can decide which to believe for yourselves. Thanks.

[Blarg]

So I had to make the entire drive unallocated to install it. But now because I couldn't have my drive as gpt and because I can't choose/find UEFI in my bios I have no way that I know of to have access to all 3tb of my drive. So my 3tb drive is now only listed as 2TB.

Could I have unallocated my hard drive and created a partition with a mbr section to put windows 8 and the rest of the drive (over 2tb in size) as gpt format so I could still have access to the entire 3tb?

[orinthia]

Do you have windows installed now? You may be able to go to the disk manager and create another "drive" from the unallocated space.

Is your motherboard very old though? It may be the thing holding you back in the end.

[Shenrien]

GPT is a slightly newer format than MBR that is supported, if his motherboard is able to support GPT it's likely from ~2009-2010 or newer, not terribly old. If he's using a HDD that is over 2TB and doesn't have it formatted properly, no matter what he does he will not be able to access the unpartitioned data on the HDD. There are ways to get around that but you risk waking up one morning and turning on your PC to find everything has been corrupt and have to start over from square one.

[Blarg]

My motherboard is a m5a78L-mLx plus. I just saw an unboxing youtube video for it listed as from 2011 so I guess it's around that age though I got it last year or so. I really don't know why I haven't been able to get UEFI (since I think that's the main problem and my new problems are because I had to work around that issue) since that should be recent enough to get that option in bios.

Ok, so do i really have to download a classic shell addon to make windows 8.1 not be garbage. I looked at guides that are supposed to make windows look like a classic style but none of them even match the things I see on my screen.

So now I have vista on one hard drive and 8.1 on another and I just choose which one to boot into for now. Can I get the programs installed on the hard drive with vista and create shortcuts for them and put them on my 8.1 hard drive and then put those on the desktop and access the programs with all my settings saved that way? Does that work with programs like Chrome which will keep my bookmarks/extensions/saved pw's/ etc?

[orinthia]

Classic shell is fine if you can't wrap your head around the changes. Win 7 introduced a smarter search in its start menu, something win8.1 uses for better navigation (hit win key and start typing, or whatever win-key shortcuts, or right click that corner when on the desktop). Classic shell at least can bring you back to exactly how vista had it, or xp or 7.

Most programs have their settings in your user folder and/or registry, so just trying to run a shortcut from your vista install while in win8 will usually not work. In most cases, you will need to reinstall the program and then copy over the settings folders from your vista user folder to your win8 one. This user folder is typically at C:\Users\your_username\AppData , and then either \Local or \Roaming (I believe vista has these directories, win7/8/8.1 will have these). This is how you can regain your chrome, firefox, etc settings (chrome is in local I think, firefox is in roaming). With things like steam, you can point steam to your previous SteamLibrary install folder so you don't have to redownload stuff.

See if there's a bios update for your mobo if there's no obvious uefi setting. Or consult the user manual. Maybe yours released without it or didn't actually support it (2tb+ drives were not common back then).

[Niya]

So I had to make the entire drive unallocated to install it. But now because I couldn't have my drive as gpt and because I can't choose/find UEFI in my bios I have no way that I know of to have access to all 3tb of my drive. So my 3tb drive is now only listed as 2TB.
Could I have unallocated my hard drive and created a partition with a mbr section to put windows 8 and the rest of the drive (over 2tb in size) as gpt format so I could still have access to the entire 3tb?

The "problem" is that you're using it as a boot drive for Win8.1. Booting from a disk >2TB and getting the full capacity is only possible with GPT, and using GPT on the boot volume forces you to boot in UEFI mode.
Since you probably can't switch to UEFI you have to format the boot volume with MBR, and MBR is limited to 2TB total partition size. There are tools that are supposed to make the "spare" space available, but from what i've heard they're mostly crap and not worth the hassle.
If you want to keep Vista and 8.1 AND use the full 3TB, the only way I see would be to buy a smaller drive (SSD?), install 8.1 on it and use the 3TB drive as a shared data drive for both OS.
According to the specs of your board it still has a "classic" BIOS without UEFI

16 Mb Flash ROM, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI v2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS V2.5, ACPI V2.0a

so no chance of booting straight from your 3TB drive with full capacity.

As orinthia already said, most programs store their config inside your user profile (c:\users\username), mostly in appdata, some in the registry, a few (especially games) in your documents folder.

Some programs like Steam don't care much about getting "transferred" to a new PC, when you launch it for the first time it just installs missing stuff and works out of the box. But most other programs don't like that at all and you'd have to install them fresh from 8.1 so they're usable again.

About getting the app settings shared/synced between both OS, that's a bit tricky. If they store everything inside your user profile, it might work. Did something like this on my work PC (parallel setup of Win7 and 8.1) for Firefox, used something called a junction to "bend" the profile folder the 8.1 firefox wants to use over to the profile of the 7 one. But junctions are an advanced feature of the NTFS file system and you shouldn't fiddle with it if you don't know what you're doing.

So, in short: syncing app settings is sometimes possible but shouldn't be messed with unless you know your stuff.