Step 7: Next, you’ll be asked to enter the product key or license key. Step 6: Click Install now button to continue. When you see the following screen, select your language, time and currency format, and keyboard method.Ĭlick the Next button to proceed to the next step. Step 5: Connect or insert the bootable Windows 8.1 media, restart your PC, press any key if you’re asked to do so to begin loading all necessary installation files. And if the SSD is new, you can safely skip this step. If your PC is unbootable, you can follow our how to backup data from an unbootable PC guide to backup all data to a USB drive without installing or booting into Windows. Step 4: If there is any data on your SSD, you must back up all data as we need to partition the SSD to create a dedicated partition for Windows 8.1 installation.

Every BIOS/UEFI’s layout is different, so we advise you to read your PC’s or motherboard’s manual for instructions to get into BIOS/UEFI and change the SATA mode to AHCI.Īlso, when you’re in the BIOS/UEFI, re-arrange the boot priority to enable boot from USB or boot from CD/DVD (again, you need to read the manual for instructions). Once you’re in UEFI/BIOS, look for an entry named SATA Mode Selection and change it to AHCI. Here, you need to enable AHCI under advanced settings. Step 3: Turn on your PC, press the appropriate key to get into BIOS/UEFI. That is, for instance, if you have connected one Solid State Drive and another Hard Disk Drive, we recommend you disconnect the hard drive to avid Windows from creating any partition on that drive.Īnd if you don’t want to disconnect, you can still go ahead and install Windows 8.1 on SSD without having to disconnect the hard drive but be sure to back up all data from your drives before proceeding further. Step 2: If you have connected two or more Hard Disk Drives or Solid State Drives, if possible, we suggest you disconnect all other drives except the one that you would like to use for Windows 8.1 install. If you don’t have a bootable media and have an ISO file instead, you can follow our how to prepare Windows 8.1 bootable USB drive from ISO file guide or use free tools like Microsoft USB/DVD Download Tool or Rufus to prepare the bootable media.Īnd if your PC supports UEFI (see how to check if your PC supports UEFI), you need to follow instructions in our how to install Windows 8.1 from USB drive guide to prepare UEFI compatible bootable USB. If you already have Windows 8.1 DVD or USB, you can skip to the next step. Step 1: First step is to prepare Windows 8.1 bootable media.

Formatting ssd from bios