Windows 10: Can't delete partitions for clean install of Windows 10

What Fafhrd says rings a bell. My son's Asus Transformer T100 has 32 GB eMMC but also a separate fixed eMMC of 8GB to store a factory restore image on it exclusively. That 8GB can't be recovered for alternate use - however, the 32 GB is completely malleable as on NavyLCDR's Nextbook.

 

Yes.

 

Looks like you install to the 21.9 GB unformatted space.

 

Here's a lengthy thread over at Acer Community that may give you some insight on the issue, has to do with WIMBOOT setup on this machine: http://community.acer.com/t5/Legacy-...on/td-p/316526

One of the articles that thread links out to: https://blogs.windows.com/itpro/2014...-boot-wimboot/

 

Hi there

If all else fails download any LINUX live CD disto -- probably Linux Mint is the easiest for beginners and then delete the partition using Linux PARTED command -- just GOOGLE for Linux PARTED command.

Cheers
jimbo

 

It's probably better to investigate what type of partition this acer recovery partition (partition number n=4, maybe 3, I guess) is - Diskpart list part should tell unambiguously:

https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitio...n_types-1.html

Probably a type 27, hidden, diag type

They usually can be unhidden simply by assigning a drive letter (below, X= drive letter of choice, something not in use)

diskpart

sel disk 0
list part
sel part n
assign letter=X
exit

or to change type to normal ntfs type 07

diskpart

sel disk 0
list part
sel part n
set ID=7 override
exit

But if other diskpart commands are not working, perhaps these will not either.

It's a GPT disk with non empty partitions, presumably, hard to crack, it seems.

If you can get hold of the factory recovery disk contents, there will be cmd scripts, or even batch files which show exactly how the partitioning is performed, if other Acer recovery partitions I've seen are anything to go by, often hidden in multipart Wim (SWM) files.

(It should also be possible to assign letters to all partitions, except the unformatted space)

 

Most probably, it's something akin to: Code: rem === 4. Images partition ========================create partition primary format quick fs=ntfs label="Images" assign letter=m set id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac" gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001[/quote] as found for an ASUS Transformer T100TA like my son's and mentioned in the Acer thread I linked to.

See Step 2 here:https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/.../hh825221.aspx

Also, in that same Acer thread, a couple of posters reported that once they were able to force delete that partition, the system was unbootable and had to be restored. If completely reformatted to go generic and not have WIMBOOT intact, they ended up actually losing ground on space remaining for use on these 32 or 64 GB drives.

 

However, Windows 10 uses a different "Compact OS" method than WIMBOOT and does not require an image or recovery partition for it.

 

Then that's good news for OP if they can get Win10 install done. Even though it seems strange the way ASUS did my son's Transformer, in his case, the 8GB separate soldered partition is still there but at least all 29GB showing is being used for Win10 since I upgraded it.

 

I get Error: 0x80070057

 

K. So you can't delete all partitions. Can you delete only the 100MB EFI system partition?

 

No. None of them.

 

You apparently did read the whole message, Jimbo.

 

Causes aside, all of the drives are hidden, GPT type and report differently in Aomei or Minitool whether they are empty or full. And nothing seems to be able to delete the partitions. Ergo there's something corrupted in the partition tables or whatever GPT uses - maybe a single GUID is wrong somewhere.


What else can be tried?

Attempt recovery using Recuva?

Attempt to assign drive letters?

Convert disk from GPT to MBR?

Use a low level editor to examine what's actually present below the apparent empty structure, a hex editor, or perhaps tools like RWEverything or Spinrite?

If you look for causes, is this damage viral? Could an antivirus discover something lurking that is corrupting the low level format of the storage medium?

 

I attempted recovery with Recuva and it didn't allow it.
I tried converting to MBR but it just goes back to GPT after I've applied it.
It does allow me to change the drive letters:




Malwarebytes got this:



I removed it, but it comes back after restart.