Cannot install Windows 8 on SSD

Last week I tried to install Windows 8 on my laptop with an OCZ SSD Hard disc.
After the necessary backup, I used the Windows 7 USB DVD boot Download tool to create a Windows 8 USB Boot disc. Booting from USB was no problem and the installer kicked in quite quickly. Then the “dangererous” part… Where do you want to install Windows?
I selected my drive and removed the current partition with Windows 7. Next step is to create a new partition and to format it. This all went fine, but when I tried to click “Next” to start the installation, I noticed that the “Next” button was greyed-out!
Then I also noticed the following error message:
“Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer’s hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disks controller is enabled in the computer’s BIOS menu”.
Say what?
My hard disc was recognised, so I don’t need drivers, right?

Maybe it was not the best thing to start this process at 23:30….tired

After some online searching I found more people with this issue with Windows 8 Beta. Apparently there is something wrong with the Windows 8 format. It works for most drives, but can have some issues with some Vortex SSD HDD and some OCZ SSD HDD. On the internet I found a lot of “possible solutions”, but all of them are actually HDD scan tools, or extra HDD format tools and honestly I don’t like solutions where you have to use free-ware tools, make your own bootable USB, then try tool 1, then tool 2, etc etc…. In this case I just like to stick with Microsoft. Plus, it was already late…. 😉

Luckily I remembered to have the ISO of Win7 (which format and install did work on my SSD) still on my external HDD and with the use of an extra laptop I created a Windows 7 USB Boot disc.
I booted from USB and started the Windows 7 Setup process. At the screen “Where do you want to install Windows?” I removed the partition again, created a new partition, formatted the new partition and noticed the “Next” button was available. Then I cancelled the installation and booted from my Windows 8 USB Boot disc. At the screen “Where do you want to install Windows?” I noticed that the “Next” button was available again! I continued the installation and it all worked!

To summarize:
– Start Windows 7 installation
– Remove “old” Windows partition
– Create new partition
– Format the partition using Windows 7 Setup
– Cancel Windows 7 Setup
– Start Windows 8 installation
– Install Windows 8

This workaround worked for me and I hope it will work for you too!

1 comment

    • Lukas on 20 October 2012 at 00:32
    • Reply

    thanks! that did the job 🙂 btw: it’s now 00:30 AM. why do we always have to work on our computers in the middle of the night? lol

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