Windows 8.1 installation failure

Question

I have an issue with installing Windows 8.1 on my laptop.

The files for windows are on a bootable usb stick and when I try to install Windows from there, it seems to work fine at first in that I can put in my product key and then I am prompted to select a drive.

Now, when I've selected a drive to install Windows on, the setup goes to the installation screen, but then I get an error that I do not understand.

The error I get is saying that the .efi files are formatted as NTFS and that I need to convert them to Fat32. How can I accomplish this?

Edit

To explain a little better:

• The harddrive is completly empty.

• The error message is in dutch and this is how i think its correctly translated:

  The EFI files are formatted in NTFS, Format them as FAT32 and try the installation again.

The error could not be excecly correct because my english is not really good to translate that sentence.

I hope you can point me to the right direction to solve my problem.

Thanks in advance

Solution 1

The Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool will not create an UEFI-bootable thumb drive. This is because the stick is formatted with NTFS, whereas UEFI requires FAT32. This probably what the message is referring to, also it’s not exactly clear why it would refuse to install in BIOS mode.

To create an UEFI-bootable Windows Setup drive, simply format it with FAT32 and copy the entire DVD contents over. And that is all.

For good measure, you could also clear the disk (again). Simply press ShiftF10 after selecting your regional settings, but before starting Setup. From the command prompt, execute the following commands:

diskpart
list disk
select disk X
clean
exit
exit

...where X is the correct disk as listed by the previous command.

Solution 2

I guess there's some problem with your EFI partition. You have either formatted it to NTFS by accident or Windows installer doesn't detect it correctly.

First you should have some notion of what partitions are. My answer to another question contains some explaination of that concept. I recommend you to read through it (you can skip "The Reserved Partition" and "The Big Question").

I'm assuming your laptop is relatively new (4 years or newer), so it probably has UEFI support and it has legacy boot disabled by default. Thus, it must also have EFI partition (see my link), but something bad happened to it and it's now NTFS-formatted, while it should be FAT32 or Windows installer doesn't detect it correctly.

In this case I'd set up a new partition table, thus removing all partitions. Windows installer should be able to recreate required partitions. This operation will delete all your data. This can be done with GParted which is part of many LiveCD Linux distros (ones that run off a CD/DVD, no need to install them), there's also dedicated GParted LiveCD which can be booted from USB. When you have GParted up and running, choose your disk from the top right combo box and click Device → New Partition Table. A new window will appear:

Choose gpt partition table type and click Apply. At this point your HDD will be wiped completely. Creating new partition table is effective immediately. Then you'll want to reboot into Windows installer and this time everything should go smoothly.

If you don't want to have your disk wiped then you can try booting GParted and deleting all partitions except for ones that contain files you want to preserve, especially small partition at the beginning of your drive which probably is the EFI partition. I think Windows installer will recreate it, but I haven't tried myself - if it won't work out of the box, you'll have to recreate EFI partition manually in GParted, including setting appropriate flags. I'm lazy, so I'd probably just backup my files to external drive, disconnect it and wipe internal HDD.

There's also a small chance your Windows 8 flash drive is malfunctioning. You can try to install from another flash drive. You have probably put Windows on that drive using Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool or Rufus, trying the other one won't hurt too.

Comments

[gparyani]

What is the exact quoted text of the error message that the computer is telling you? Please edit it into the question.

[Kinnectus]

How did you format your USB stick to put the installer files on?

[piernov]

Do you have anything on the hard drive ?

[The_Monster]

@BigChris I formnatted the USB stick in the command promt with the format function in diskpart

[piernov]

The error message isn't very clear, but I would recommand you to use the Rufus utility in order to create a bootable USB drive. And if there is a partition on a disk, delete it or recreate a GUID partition table.

[The_Monster]

@piernov How can i find the partition?

[Ramhound]

@The_Monster - Use Disk Manager of course. When you did a format what options did you select. This error makes no sense. Fat32 and efi are not compatible with one another.

[gronostaj]

I guess it's not a new HDD? How did you wipe it?

[The_Monster]

@gronostaj I used the windows explorer, when i right click i get the function format/ Then i choose fat32 and i format the USB

[gronostaj]

@Ramhound the EFI partition (that one where boot files are stored) should be formatted to FAT filesystem.

[The_Monster]

@gronostaj Can you explain to me how i can do this because at the moment i cannot use my laptop

[The_Monster]

@gronostaj Ow, i misunderstood. I wiped it in the windows 8.1 setup using the format function

[Ramhound]

I suggest you delete ALL partitions on the drive and allow the installation to do the work. You have clearly made NTFS partition which FAT32 is expected.

[The_Monster]

@Ramhound Where can i find these partition

[Ramhound]

@The_Monster - You can simply use Disk Manager.

[Aaron Christiansen]

Deleting my EFI partition during Windows setup solved the issue for me! Windows wouldn't start after an update and I needed to reinstall, but got this error. I deleted all partitions which didn't contain data I wanted to keep, which allowed me to install Windows without losing much data. Note that I was unable to delete the partitions using Windows Disk Management - I had to use Setup. Thank you again!