Release Notes: Important Issues in Windows 8

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These release notes address the most critical issues and information about the Windows® 8 operating system. For information about by-design changes, new features, and fixes in this release, see documentation and announcements from the specific feature teams. For information you should review prior to installing this release, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=240148. Unless otherwise specified, these notes apply to all editions and installation options of Windows 8.

This document is continuously updated; as soon as such issues are reported, they will be documented here. For less serious issues and other information about this release, see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=238545.

Setup with UEFI and 4K native drives

If you boot a computer in UEFI mode from the Windows 8 installation DVD and then attempt to install Windows 8 onto a drive that uses the 4K logical sector size (“4K native”), you will receive the following error: “We couldn't create a new partition.”

To avoid this, create the needed partition using Diskpart.exe instead of allowing Setup.exe to do it. When the installation wizard gets to the Where do you want to install Windows? page, press SHIFT+F10 to open a command prompt. Use DiskPart to create the partition, and then return to the installation wizard to continue installation. For information about using Diskpart.exe for this, see Sample: Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions by Using Windows PE and DiskPart

If this has already occurred, follow these steps:

  1. On the Where do you want to install Windows? page of the wizard, select a partition created by Setup and then click Delete. Repeat for any other partitions also created by Setup.

  2. Click New to create a new installation partition, and then continue with installation.

For additional information about 4K sector drives, including steps to determine if your drive is of this type, see Microsoft support policy for 4K sector hard drives in Windows

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