Can't install Win10 on a newly format drive

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by some111, Oct 26, 2015.

  1. some111

    some111 MDL Novice

    Oct 28, 2007
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    Hi all,
    I upgraded to win10 from win7 and attempted to perform a clean install after the upgrade. I formatted the hard drive while booting from the USB drive that holds the win10 iso. It wouldn't let me install the OS in the drive even though I deleted it and created a new partition again.
    What did I miss?
    Thanks!
     
  2. fkar

    fkar MDL Recognized Advisor

    Nov 3, 2012
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    Does it show any error?
     
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  3. pisthai

    pisthai Imperfect Human

    Jul 29, 2009
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  4. endbase

    endbase MDL Guru

    Aug 12, 2012
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    I always leave a disk raw after removing partitions so let windows maken an partition trough the setup In my experience making manual partitions before setup gave me some problems in the past the same as you describe :tea:
     
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  5. Sakuya

    Sakuya MDL Junior Member

    Jul 16, 2015
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    You probably have a MBR based bootable USB, you can't install windows from MBR based USB to GPT partitioned drives and vice versa.

    You have two options

    Recreate the bootable USB with GPT.
    -or-
    Repartition the drive to MBR.
     
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  6. tonyh2004

    tonyh2004 MDL Member

    Aug 2, 2011
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    Use diskpart at the install screen and use cleandisk then install as normal
     
  7. Engineer2k2

    Engineer2k2 MDL Member

    Jun 21, 2012
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    You need to press SHIFT + F10 when Windows PE environment loads to open CMD and then use diskpart.
     
  8. pisthai

    pisthai Imperfect Human

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  9. odiebugs1

    odiebugs1 MDL Expert

    Jul 30, 2015
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    So windows 10 runs on the system. You should delete all partitions and format and you are left with unallocated space, you then hit the NEW, and have main largest partition, you must highlight the main large partition and click install.

    There is no reason to low level format, and if you have a fat32 flash drive and choose UEFI flash drive in boot menu it will install in GPT, and if it's a NTFS flash drive and boot from it you will get MBR.

    A professional, will wipe the HDD, called zeroing and they don't format, as formatting from NTFS to NTFS is ridiculous. Then they will clear CMOS and adjust the UEFI as needed, like making sure it's AHCI for storage if it's not default, making sure PIC-E is set Gen 3 if applicable or IGPU-GPU and so on. This is the right way to do a clean install.
     
  10. Flipp3r

    Flipp3r MDL Expert

    Feb 11, 2009
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    #10 Flipp3r, Oct 26, 2015
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2015
    Did you boot in UEFI or MBR/Legacy for the install?
    During install, SHIFT+F10 to get to the cmd prompt.
    Run diskpart, "sel dis 0", then "clean" to wipe the drive. The drive will be listed as uninitialized.
    If you've boot in UEFI mode you can also convert the drive to GPT from diskpart, "con gpt".
    Exit & continue install, Diskmanager should see the drive ok & create correct partition structure...

    Note if you want to fully clean the drive (takes ages), instead of "clean" (which is quick) it's "clean all"...

    Before I get flamed, diskpart commands work with the 1st 3 letters of command:
    cle = clean
    for = format
    sel dis 0 = select disk 0
    etc...
     
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  11. Enthousiast

    Enthousiast MDL Tester

    Oct 30, 2009
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    What is the error message?

    What do you mean by: "The USB drive that holds the win 10 iso"? You mean you've extracted the win 10 iso to the usb drive or used rufus or the official win 7 usb/dvd store tool to create a bootable usb drive (ufd)?

    If you want to use it on an UEFI system you can format the usb drive in FAT32 and simply extract the win 10 iso to it (make sure the wim file is < 4GB, if it's > 4GB than you can make split wim files (swm) or compress it to esd format).
     
  12. odiebugs1

    odiebugs1 MDL Expert

    Jul 30, 2015
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    Clean does nothing but mark the sectors as empty, "clean all" which takes about an hour per 300g does wipe ( zero ) it. If you boot in UEFI windows will make it GPT format, no reason to use diskpart to make it GPT.

    @ OP, This makes sure no partitions or hidden sectors are left.