Windows 10: Impossible to clean install win 10 from usb or Iso on formatted drive

Hello tenforums *Wink
Im new on the forum, al though i have been reading articles or forum topics here a couple of time. Now, reading is not enough, and i would apreciate some help or suggestions about issues Im having with win 10 on my acer aspire laptop.
over the past week, i have tried to clean install win 10 on my aspire e17 (using every possible recovery and reset option from both the usb flash drive i had created after the very first install one year ago AND from an Iso dvd also created from my windows 10 with media creation tool recently.)
Every attempt to do so has failed, at various levels of progression. It's Been driving me crazy ! I have asked a friand for advice (not sure i shouldve trusted him..)He Told me He had formatted the drive to try and solve the problème. I ended up with an empty hard drive, even the partitions are gone (Acer, esp, recovery, system... Everything is gone after the failed win 10 recoveries/reset attempts !!!), making my hdd non bootable device .
If I believe these issues and install errors are caused by the system image partitions on usb/iso not matching the hdd ones (ie NONE), im not an expert and would really appreciate the help of the community in order not to create more issues than these resets attempts have already created.
I have Win 10 64 bits family edition, that came installed when i purchased my aspire e17(snid is 61107258766.) i bought it in a french shop in may 2016(i'm french).
Thanks for your help *Wink

Édit: i've Also done a diskpart clean and convert gpt, and tried reinstalling > error impossible to reset this pic. A needed disk/drive partition is missing.

:)

 

I was blocked from using my laptop

Download the ISO on another computer, put it on a USB drive, boot the computer from the USB drive, format (you will lose all your data and applications), install win 10

 

Install from Media Creation Tool

I've successfully upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10. I downloaded the media creation tool to do a later clean install. The download is on my C: Drive. Can I just copy it to an empty USB drive and do the clean install? Does the format of the USB drive matter?

 

Have you or your friend used the installation medias 'custom install option' to first of all delete all the partitions on the drive such that the drive shows as unallocated space ?

Having done that you can then install W10 or before doing that you can create a partition of your own choosing (size). The rest remains unallocated and when W10 is up and running you can then create any new additional partitions you may want.

 

Hello Mooly, yes I have, but an error occured nevertheless at some point...

Ok, I could try to create a partition first. (But isnt it what this custom install is already supposed to do ? Deleting all old partitions and automatically create what it needs? Anyway...)

What size should i chose for this partition ? 100Go (over 931) ?
And what about the file system, letter, label, attributes? Anything particuliar needed ? Thanks again, I appreciate your help a lot *Wink

 

Hi and welcome to Tenforums.
If your friend has indeed deleted all partitions on the drive, then your Acer recovery partition is gone. In this case you have 2 options: 1. install W10 clean from an ISO which has W10 on it only, and not all the additional Acer software that originally came with the system, or, 2. order recovery media from Acer, so you can have all the software that came with the system as well.

Which do you prefer?

EDIT:
See here for W10 clean installation.
Clean Install Windows 10 Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials
Do Custom Install (see step #10), and delete all partitions, so you install to a completely unallocated drive.

 

Some hints to get a stubborn Windows 10 install to succeed:

Have nothing connected to the computer except for the bare essentials to install Windows 10. Keyboard, mouse, monitor, power supply, and the USB flash drive if using one to install Windows 10.

Do NOT connect to the internet during the install. Keep Ethernet cables unplugged. If there is a physical switch to turn WiFi off then turn it off. Do not connect to any WiFi hotspots listed during the installation phases. If asked to check for updates during the install, click the option to skip checking for updates.

On the first screen after booting from the flash drive or DVD when it asks for languages, press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. Run:

diskpart
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

99% of computers will install Windows to disk 0 (the first drive). If you are certain that you need to install Windows to a different drive than the default HDD or SSD, then you can do:

diskpart
list disk
select disk # <-pick the drive number
clean
exit
exit

NOTE! The clean command will erase that ENTIRE drive.

If you are absolutely certain that you are doing a UEFI install and not a legacy bios install, you can run the command
convert gpt

after the clean command. This is not needed, though, as Windows 10 setup should do a GPT install anyway if it detects that it is running in UEFI.

Select the custom install option when presented. You should see the drive you want to install Windows to listed as nothing but unallocated space. Hightlight the unallocated space and click next. Again, do not connect to WiFi if asked, and do not have any wired network cable plugged in. Click on the option to Skip any updates.

If the computer reboots back into the installation USB flash drive or DVD when it does reboot, just remove the flash drive or DVD and reboot again.

When you get to the screen that asks to create an account - keep clicking on the options to Skip or Do This Later until you can't skip the screen any longer. This screen should be asking for a username, not an email address, and this is where you will set up a local account. Do not enter an email address - just enter a desired username. I do John for mine. Set a password if you want to, just make sure to remember it.

After everything seems stable, then you can connect to a network and internet, convert the user account to a Microsoft account if you want to, install updates, and Windows 10 should activate itself once connected assuming it was activated on that computer before.

 

This is how I do it and this is what you should see (ignore the red outlines, I grabbed the image from the web).





Any partitions already present would be shown. You use the X to delete. When all are deleted you see unallocated space as shown here.

I then select 'New' and deliberately set the size small (I select 20,000Mb which is 20Gb). You then select 'Apply' and then 'Next' and the disc is then formatted automatically into two partitions, one of 500Mb and the other using the remainder of the 20Gb you allocated.

Windows should then install correctly.

Having done that I then use Windows 'Disk Management' which is found by typing 'create and format' into W10's search box. You can then expand the 20Gb partition to whatever size you choose. Any remaining space is still 'unallocated' and you can use that to create other partitions as you see fit to suit your needs.

Edit... and why do I choose a small size originally. Probably a throwback to when Windows could spread files out on a disc. The files furthest out as it were then set a limit on how far a partition could be shrunk as they are classed as unmovable. Make the initial size small and you have no worries.

 

Hi all*Smile thanks for the replies. I downloaded iso from win 10, created usb bootable flash drive with rufus. Im about to diskpart clean and convert gpt. And boot from usb flash drive. Il met you know If there are any further errors with this méthod and your advice. Thanks a lot *Smile

 

Many people get an incorrectly formatted flash drive with rufus because it's settings are overly complicated and unnecessary for making a bootable Windows installation flash drive. The flash drive should be formatted as FAT32, and the FAT32 partition on the flash drive should be marked as active. That will make it universally compatible with both UEFI and legacy BIOS computers.

 

C'est impossible de manquer son coup avec l'installateur de Windows 10: infaillible. Go back to Rufus 2.15 and redo the ISO image as shown in the screenshot. Never mind about partitioning, just delete existing partitions and click next. If the computer is new, then its UEFI. Screenshot shows 1703 ISO image.

EDIT: Always do a clean install with no Internet and set the machine before enabling it. Is your friend played in the BIOS?

 

or forget the rufus nonsense altogether since it is unnecessary.

 

Hi everybody, Yaheeeeeee !! This time, thanks to your support, the install was successful ! *Smile (Rufus has done the job, thanks for the hints on how to parameter Navy *Smile) No error during the whole installation process *Smile Thanks a lot ! *Smile I'll remember this for the next time *Smile Everything seems to work fine, except for some errors I noticed in the events log though... Is this the right thread to ask for help about them here, or should I ask in another section ? I'd like to understand what these errors are, and why they occur. (I think I might have done something I shouldn't have, that confuses windows a little bit (and re-reading this thread I just noticed that Mooly had suggested a partinioning method that would have avoided these issues maybe ?...: After the 930 Go c: (sytem) partion was created automatically, I wanted to add a D: patition for all my data. (should have done it during the installation process I guess...) I tried to shrink the c: partition via windows tools, but it would only allow me to shrink it to 450Go or so (leaving half of my drive for the OS...). So, after reading some tutorials, I used MiniTool Partition Wizard to split the only existing partition (c*Smile, leaving 100Go for the system, and the remaining space for data... Does that mess with the way windows classifies files etc... I know I'm asking you guys a lot, but could you have a look at the events log errors here. If not, I totally understand, and I'll open a new thread in the right section *Smile Once again, thanks for your help ! *Smile

 

Once again, thanks everyone for you help *Smile See you

 

Glad it worked out for you! Shrinking the Windows partition to make room for a data partition will have no affect on Windows operation, unless it runs out of physical memory and space in the Windows partition for a page file.