Windows 10: Partitions Thwarting Install on HP Laptop

Hi all,

Rather than go it alone, I'm asking for some tag along assistance.

I have a HP Touch LapTop that came with Win 8.1.
It is HP product # 15-f010wm
500 GB storage
4 GB Ram


I upgraded to Win 10 last year and my daughter brought it back to me for fixing because she couldn't get the Wi-Fi turned on, and it was slow as a cart drawn by a crippled bison.

I resolved the Wi-Fi issue but I've never seen any machine this slow. Not even a 10 inch with an Intel Celeron my ex had some years ago. This thing is so slow as to be unusable.

She said it started being like that last year.

Rather than do the regular malware cleanup, I want to do a tactical nuke and reinstall.

It has at least 6 partitions. I want to keep 3.

The one where Win 10 will be installed, the one where all her files are stored, and the OEM recovery partition.

What can I do to partition this since it won't boot?

I attempted to repartition with EaseUS partition manager but it stalled on reboot, and won't reboot since. The reason I tried to repartition is because it wouldn't allow me to install Win 10 from a Win 10 CD. What it would do is hang on reboot so the install would never initialize. I don't know if it's because of the UEFI bootloader that HP has on the thing. My daughter did tell me that was one of the issues she experienced before. On reboots, it would randomly hang and never reboot.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to delete all the partitions I don't want (since it won't boot), so I can install a clean copy of Win 10? I have tried deleting or reformatting the partitions from the boot CD I'm using but that's a no go. I can't tell if that's because of UEFI.

?





:)

 

Windows 10 upgrade will affect my recovery partition?

Windows 10 upgrade will affect my recovery partition? and if not can windows 10 read hp recovery partition so i can install drivers and software in the recovery partition witch originally came with my laptop

 

in w10, how make a partition with FAT32 File-System

My new HP laptop with w10 installed. I have made the hard-disk into 4-partition.

Now all the partitions are in FS of NTFS.

Can I change one of the partition into FAT32. If yes, tell me HOW please!

 

Hi there
download bootable copy of GPARTED, boot it and delete partitions as required.

Note : W10 doesn't like installing if you have an SD card inserted into the machine or > 4 HDD's / partitions (or a combination of both).

Remove SD card until after W10 install -- then it's fine. If you are using UEFI your HDD's must be formatted GPT (at least the BOOT HDD must be).

After install no probs with nr of HDD's / partitions.

If you want to keep the OEM recovery partition before removing it from the internal laptop HDD why not download FREE MACRIUM and image it (i.e copy to external device) before starting Windows install.

Cheers
jimbo

 

By a "tactical nuke and install" do you mean wipe all partitions and start with a clean 500GB disk?

I'm not sure what partitions you want to keep? Don't do this if you want to keep any data on the disk

If so on the windows setup screen you showed above you can press shift+F10 to get to a command prompt.
type diskpart
type list disk
type sel disk 0
type list part
if the disk is offline, you may need to type online
type clean all
type exit
you may need to type exit once more to close the command prompt.
it should have no partitions, so refresh the setup screen
you should have just one entry
disk 0 unallocated space

more help here on diskpart

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

Hi Jimbo.
Was just doing this.
Question though. Will this work on a 64 bit system? It say this on their website:

GParted Live is a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86 based computers.

I don't have a SD card in there. No SD card reader.
I don't understand much about UEFI, but one of the error messages it threw was that Win 10 cannot be installed on a GPT drive... Or something like that. Didn't get an opportunity to take a pic.

I do have Macrium, never leave home without it, and that's a good idea.
I'll get on that. Thanks for the suggestions.

Do you think the OEM has any special partitions/dependencies for the recovery partition?

 

[/quote] Thanks for the suggestion Fafhrd. But I do want to keep some data, that's why I said tactical nuke. Want to nuke selected partitions not all of them.

 

Yes but which (partition number) do you want to keep?

 

What I would do is make a DVD or USB flash drive of Kyhi's recovery drive:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Boot the computer from it, run MiniTool Partition Wizard.
Delete the partitions you don't want. Move the partitions you want to keep to the end of the disk. Make sure to click the apply button. You should end up with a big, unallocated space at the front of the disk.

Make a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB Flash Drive. Boot the computer from that. Select the Custom Install option, install Windows 10 to the big unallocated space.

Actually, I lied. What I would really do is back up the hard drive to an external hard drive using Macrium Reflect Free (also on Kyhi's recovery drive), and then wipe the entire hard drive and install Windows 10 to the empty unallocated space which would be the entire hard drive. Then copy back from the backup image the data I wanted back on the laptop.

 

Ok - burried in the above email chain is a statement that OP cannot install Windows as disk is not gpt formatted.

So OP either needs to set pc to install as a legacy bios install, or convert disk to gpt format to do a uefi install. You can use minitools partition manager free to convert frive to gpt withput data loss

OP - you need to clarify which partition you want to keep.
Really better to backup data on that partition and wipe all drives.

 

Hey cerebereus,

When I say keep, what I meant is I only want there to be 3 partitions. I know some of these partitions were created by HP's update software.

I don't think I'm going to be reinstalling the update software, I can always download what I need from the HP website. I may not even need that stuff. We'll see.

I don't care if it's a UEFI boot, or a legacy bios boot except if it will somehow confuse my daughter later on. If it will boot in legacy mode, and she won't have to care what her bios is that's fine with me. If it's better to keep the original uefi boot configuration, I'm fine with that too. So long as every time it reboots, her computer won't do anything wonky, it'll just work as she expects, I'm happy either way.

 

This is why I come here. Fantastic sir. All my recs to you.
This is brilliant software.

Solved a whole bunch of issues, one go.

I never like the boot stuff to be on the same partition as the files etc. I don't know where I picked that up, but that works out better for PC's I have to occasionally service. I'm COMING Grandma!
Why do you insist on filling out these surveys? They aren't going to give you a free IPad, and you don't even like the one Jackie bought you. This is why you keep getting infected.

When this happens, I can just restore a Macrium image of the boot drive. A couple updates and she's back up and running.

 

After you install Windows to the big, unallocated space, go back and use MiniTool Partition Wizard free to shrink the OS partition and create yourself a data partition.