Windows 10: I was about to install Microsoft and perform a clean install. It cannot delete all partitions.

I was about to install windows, rather, perform a clean installation. On the other hand, when I was about to remove my two primary partitions and it prompts that "We couldn't delete the selected partition. [Error: 0x800701b1]". I aslo tried to other partitions and it always prompts the same problem. I decided to select one of the partitions in my drive 0 to install there but sadly, it cannot create partitions on the selected partition. Hence, I went back to the "Install" menu and chose "Repair your computer".The Startup Repair failed and directed me to Troubleshoot settings. I chose to run "Co

:)

 

Can install Windows, can't install Linux

Are you doing a clean install?

Also if you are doing a clean install may I suggest this. Delete and format all partitions and let Ubuntu allocate the drive. You might have some MBR files left on the HD that is conflicting with Ubuntu booting.

 

Error: We couldn't delete the selected partition. [Error: 0x800701b1] when trying to delete partition during Windows 10 installation

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



We will need the following information from you to help you further:

• How are you trying to install Windows?
  
• Which partition are you trying to delete?
  

In the meantime, you can refer the steps mentioned below and see if that helps:



Method 1: Formatting the partition



If you are trying to delete one particular partition, you can format the partition and see if that helps. To format the partition, on the installation screen select the partition that you want to format and click on
Format.



Method 2: Using Diskpart command



If you are performing a clean installation on the computer and want to delete all the partitions from the computer, you may try using the Diskpart commands. Follow the steps mentioned below:

1. On the installation screen press Shift key + F10 to open Command Prompt.
   
2. Type Diskpart and hit Enter.
   
3. Type list disk.
   
4. Type select disk 0.
   
5. Type clean.
   
6. Now, close command prompt window and continue installation.
   

Note: Running clean command will erase all the information from the hard drive.




For more information on performing a clean installation, please refer the article

How to Clean Install Windows 10 on a PC Step-by-Step Guide created by PaulSey...



Let us know how it goes.



Regards,

Nikhar Khare

Microsoft Community - Moderator

 

Windows 10 clean install mess up partitions?

No. I have such setup since Windows XP and it works great. 50GB chuck of drive is reserved for system partition and data partition is the remaining disk size. When installing new OS, I just delete the first partition, recreate new one and install OS. System is installed clean each time and all the existing data remains where it was, on the secondary data partition. This way you can change systems in matter of hours without any fiddling with your stored data.