HP Desktop , Replaced HD, & Would like to Reload Windows OS

Ah yes well you are going to have to use another program to change your disk to GPT format. I didn't think of that sorry. If you have a USB external caddy you could pull the hard drive out and do it from another computer also. It can be done through windows disk management then.

 

That would work if it formatted for Linux file system it may not show up. You may have to use Derick Nuke and Boot or another program to do it.

 

I found this video that may be helpful.

 

Check if your disk is GPT or MBR using gdisk tool
The gdisk is a command-line menu-driven program for the creation and manipulation of the partition table. It can be used to convert an MBR disk to GPT or a GPT disk to MBR.

Before you use gdisk command, first run the given command in your terminal to install gdisk if it is not in your system –

sudo apt install gdisk -y
After installing gdisk use the following command to list the available disks –

sudo fdisk -l
Now see the list and identify the correct disk where you want to check the partitioning style of the disk.

To check if the disk is GPT or MBR use the following command in your terminal –

sudo gdisk /dev/sda1
In the above command /dev/sda1 is my disk that we are going to scan to check which partition table is present on the disk. Repalce it with the your disk name.

This command will scan for the partition table present on the disk and display it inside the terminal. See the image below the highlighted part shows that the disk is MBR only.



If the partitioning style of the disk is GPT then it will display the output as given in the image below –



GPT or MBR: Check using the parted command
The parted command is also used to create and manipulate the partition table. It supports multiple partition table formats including MBR and GPT.

We can use the patrted command to check the partition table format, use the following command in your terminal –

sudo parted /dev/sda1 p
And this will display the output as given in the image below. The partition table present on this disk is gpt.



Conclusion
There may some other ways to check the partition table format on a disk. The method describes one of the easiest ways to find if disk uses GPT or MBR. Now if you have a query on this topic then write us in the comments below.

 

I would think the install disk would ask if you wanted to format the hard drive if that was needed. Guess that's wrong thinking.

 

It does but that comes after where he got the error message I believe Tony. This UEFI stuff messes with me I don't totally understand it yet.

 

I've loaded Windows a number of times using a flash drive created with the Media Creation Tool. I've never seen this before. Try connecting that hard drive to your other Windows machine via a SATA to USB adapter. Then use Windows Disk Management to delete all the partitions. Then create a new partition from the unallocated space. Then try to install Windows using the USB drive you created, See what happens.

 

I 've seen this before you will have to do what Tony suggested. Windows won't recognize Linux file system. You will have to start with a empty hard drive.

 

I thought that also but wasn't sure since the he got that error message already. This UEFI messes with me also I don't fully understand it either.

 

Try this from Microsoft https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...management/change-a-gpt-disk-into-an-mbr-disk