windows 8 dual boot install issuses

Try (#4) here:

< http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f320/we-couldnt-install-windows-in-the-location-you-chose-please-check-your-media-drive-693244.html >

Thanks, I found that one as well. It says that you should clean the disk.  I am trying to put it on a partition on a disk. If I clean the disk, the other partition will be lost.  That is where my other OS is.

Thanks.  Sorry, I didn't read the title carefully.  :-(

Is the UEFI enabled in your case? If yes then the answer is simple, the system installation process has identified that you have already one GPT table created and refuses to install to it till you clean up the drive. Because MS does not allow installing more than one OS on GPT drive.

Hi, sorry but I don't understand what you are saying.  What is UEFI and how can I check?

If I do have this enabled are you saying that I need to use another drive?

Thanks for the response.

UEFI is a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface
You can look in BIOS if you have UEFI enabled.
If yes, then disable it. But even if you have it disabled you will not be able to install Windows on the drive as it is GPT (in case UEFI was enabled).

Thanks.  Can you please explain in easier terms what you are saying?  I am a developer and don't do much with hardware.

1.  It looks like you said that I should disable something, but it won't fix my problem.  Why then would I disable it?

2. If I turn this off am I losing functionality?

3. There are a ton of articles involving dual boot with windows server 2008, windows 7, and windows 8.  If UEFI has been around longer than any of these operating systems, why has this step been left out of everything else that I read.

4. How do you know my drive is GPT?  Is this bad?  Do I need a new drive?

5. What is the solution to my original problem?  It seems like it isn't possible from your answer.

Thanks again for the response!

Ok, first we need to know if the drive is GPT. In Windows go to Windows Disk Management. There right click on your Drive and select properties. There select Volmes and see in Partition Style if it s MBR or GPT.

Thanks, I can do this tonight when I get home.

Correct me if I am wrong...probably am, just did a little research.... It looks like GPT is a newer format that allows bigger drives as well as UEFI.  If I am not interested in a drive over 1TB at this time and just want to get this working, can I format my new partition as MBR and be done with it?  Also, UEFI is also newer and prevents a rogue OS to load on your computer, but it is not necessary is this correct?

Thanks again for your help, I am totally lost with all this hardware stuff.

GPT is not as new as you think. It is more than 5 years old. At the time its first appearance it was designed to support bigger RAIDed configurations. Then it was managed to start Windows Itanium from such type of drives. BTW, MacOSX is running on GPT drives always.
So, if you do not want to have GPT formatted drives as your drives are less than 2TB then you need to turn off the UEFI in BIOS and reinstall Windows first converting the drive into Basic MBR format.
The new drive then will be always formatted as MBR.

Is that what I should do?  My ultimate goal is just to dual boot win8 along with my server 2008 machine.  I am trying to use a partition on the same disk as the server 2008 os, but I could also do that on another disk.

I have no preference and don't even know what the tradeoffs are.

My knowledge on the subject comes from what you posted above along with the instructions all over the web on how to setup a dual boot with Win 8.  None of these tutorials have mentioned the drive type or bios.  It appears from what you are saying that the most drive/bios that is most common for the past 5 years will not work.  Am I missing something?

Thanks.  This isn't helping at all.  I am going to close this and ask another question.

Anyway, check f the drive is GPT or not. Based on that info I can help you creating the dual boot configuration.