Reinstalling Win 8.1 Preview on MBR disk

When Win 8.1 Preview was first released it installed without issue in a second partition on my Win 7 Pro Lenovo Edge E335 and created a standard dual boot setup. A week ago something or other started causing chaos in Win 7 though 8.1 still ran normally, but as 7 is my day-to-day system I needed to get it working normally again. Three different Acronis images restored OK but then each developed the same problems, so probably a rootkit was behind it all. Unable to overcome these problems I restored to factory condition, reinstalled my software and life returned to normal.

I then set about repartitioning to install Win 8.1 Preview again but hit a first problem when the same DVD and key I had used previously failed as the key was not accepted. Undaunted I tried again with a new key I found on the internet and this key did work. However the install then failed with the message that Win 8.1 can not be installed to an MBR disk, only to a GPT disk. Now this is the same disk that installed to the same MBR HDD previously, only the key being different.

Is the only solution to this to convert the entire disk to GPT and reinstall both 7 and 8.1 again? If so, that's a bit of a problem as my Win 7 was preinstalled to an MBR disk and I'm certainly not buying it again.

 

Solved. BIOS/UEFI Startup was set to Both > Legacy first but by changing it to Legacy only Win 8.1 Preview is now installing.

 

Thanks for the "heads up" about the MBR/GPT issue. I was considering getting 8.1 Pro when it came out next month.

I have the "leaked" version with Pro Key that I had on my computer for less than 12 hours but, it installed OK to a dual boot MBR disk. I'll try it again just out of curiosity. If it won't install, it must be something Microsoft is doing to get us to "update" our computers.

In the meantime, just stay with Win 7. There's still plenty of time before you'll be forced to go to a later version.

 

It's nothing sneaky by MS, it's simply if you boot the DVD in UEFI mode, and try to install on a MBR disk you will get an error "cannot be installed to an MBR disk", and if you boot the DVD in Legacy mode, and try to install on a GPT disk you will get an error "cannot be installed to an GPT disk" so it's just a case of BIOS settings. I'm still puzzled though, why the key that worked before didn't work this time.

On my main computer I've been using 8 Pro in dual boot with 7 Ult ever since the original offer and it has become my preferred system. However it's a bit pricey to get it for this small Lenovo laptop I had the problem with so I'm hoping that 8.1 Preview will keep working long after 8.1 becomes available to the general public. Might be being a little optimistic there though