Resolved Installing Windows 7 64-bit on GPT Disk

Hi,

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I want to make sure all relevant information is provided.

1. I have a new Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon with a 128GB SSD that came pre-installed with Windows 8. I don't like Windows 8 so I decided to reformat and do a clean install of Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

2. The hard drive came partitioned using GPT (GUID Partition Table) partitioning but it had a bunch of partitions that were taking up space unnecessarily since they were mostly for recovery of Windows 8. I have no plans to use Windows 8 and thus deleted all partitions (I did take an image of the drive before wiping, just in case.)

3. I managed to recreate the necessary partitions required by the GPT scheme, and here is what I now have:

- Disk 0 Partition 1 - 100MB (System)
- Disk 0 Partition 2 - 30MB (MSR - Reserved)
- Disk 0 Unallocated Space ~128GB

4. Here is the problem: When I come to install Windows 7 on the unallocated disk space, it says "Unable to install on this partition because it is GPT." I've also tried creating a data partition and formatting it NTFS before installing but get the same result.

Additional note: I am booting from a bootable Windows 7 USB

I've seen similar questions posed in other forums and have spent days looking for an answer but have come up with nothing but invalid or incomplete information. So I'm posting here since I've always gotten great results with this community.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

So, let me understand. Disk 0 contains a TOTAL of 128GB?
What about installing Windows on Partition 1, the System Partition?

 

Yes, Disk 0 is 128 MB.

I never considered installing Windows on Partition 1 since it is the EFI system partition (ESP.) I was under the impression that this was a special partition that wasn't meant for OS or Data.

 

*** Correction, that was 128GB NOT 128MB

 

@TonyT: I know that GPT is more for when you have larger drives or need more than 4 partitions, however my system came factory installed with GPT partitioning and supports UEFI so I figured why not.

That said, after some trial and error, I decided to delete the previously created partitions and just tell Windows 7 to install on the resulting "unallocated space" of my SSD during setup and it worked. It would seem that Windows 7 automatically creates the required partitions during the install process. Problem solved.

Thanks to all those who responded.