Windows 10: Windows 10 custom installation from USB stuck at "getting ready"

Hello,

My Lenovo Ideapad Y510P laptop is failing to boot and encountering BSOD shortly after starting laptop (bad_system_config error), so I downloaded the Windows 10 installation media directly from Microsoft onto a USB, then entered boot options and chose to boot from USB to go into Windows 10 setup. I chose custom setup because:

• My laptop already had Windows 10 Home installed before getting the BSOD's
• I'd like to keep my personal files on the non-system drives

Everything went fine until the compute restarted, now it's stuck with the Lenovo logo and "getting ready" for the last hour which I doubt is normal.

Does anyone know what's causing this and what's the proper way of custom installation via USB? I google'd extensively but can only find info on clean installations where you wipe your entire HD, which is NOT what I want as I need to preserve my personal files, but I don't mind wiping C: drive. Also there was some info about "legacy BIOS" and "UEFI" but I have no idea what those are or which one my computer has.

:)

 

stuck at "Making sure you're ready to install"

I have been stuck at "making sure you're ready to install for about 30mins now. i disabled windows defender. I custom built my computer and i know it is more than capable to handle windows 10. I am going from windows 7 to windows 10. Any help is appreciated.

 

Activation Error: 0xC004C003

Did you "upgrade" to windows 10 from media usb and not use "custom" install?

 

Hi Pohalan.

Before you installed did you read the TenForums tutorial on installing Windows.

Clean Install Windows 10

You can enter BIOS following instructions on page 26. You will also see on this page your machine by default boots UEFI. If you just created key using Microsoft's tool, no other changes or additions, it is UEFI ready.

https://download.lenovo.com/consumer...ug_english.pdf

Please tell me you have your data backed up off machine just in case. I strongly recommend you do so, now. You can use Kyhi's bootable rescue disk to rectify.

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk

I know your desire is to keep it in place, you still need a backup.


Ken

 

Thanks Caledon Ken.

I was confused about what "clean install" meant, I thought it mean it would completely wipe your HD, but I guess it just means it'll wipe C: drive only?

So after reading that guide I'm assuming the problem is I didn't set the boot option to always boot from USB? And that it only booted from it once to launch the installer? So after the system restarted after it's done preparing the setup, it reverted back to booting from HD?

Also I didn't back up my personal files on the F: drive. My computer is unable to boot, and I'm not handy enough to risk opening up my computer and disconnecting the HD, connect it to another computer and move all the files over, so I wasn't sure what to do other than make sure re-installing didn't wipe my F: drive. That rescue tool you linked, it has a lot of technical lingo (not too great with computers), what exactly does it do? Is it basically a way to backup my F: drive files without needing to boot or something?

Thanks.

 

What I would recommend doing is converting the existing flash drive you have to a hybrid Kyhi's Recovery Tools drive. See my quote in the middle of the OP here:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Download Kyhi's ISO file, mount the ISO file. Take only the \Sources\boot.wim file from his ISO and overwrite the \Sources\boot.wim file on the USB flash drive with it. You can rename the original boot.wim file to boot.bak if you want to.

Then the flash drive will boot into Kyhi's recovery tools. Using the tools available in Kyhi's drive, move the partition containing your data to the end of the drive and all the files you want to keep into that partition. Then delete all the other partitions in front of the data partition.

Then to install Windows, make sure you have nothing connected that you don't need (for a laptop, that means pretty much nothing but the power cord and the one USB flash drive with Windows. Remove all connections to the internet, no Ethernet cable plugged in, do not connect to WiFi. Run setup.exe from the USB flash drive from within Kyhi's Recovery Tools and that will start Windows setup like normal. When you get to the custom install option and the next screen, highlight the unallocated space and click next to let Windows set up the rest of the disk (it will leave your data partition intact).

Do not connect to the internet until you get a local account setup and Windows has settled down. Then connect to the internet to pull upgrades, activate, and convert your local account to Microsoft Account login if you want.

During Windows setup, you want it to boot from the USB flash drive only once. When the computer reboots, it should reboot from the hard drive to continue setup from the hard drive. If you set the computer to always boot from the USB flash drive first, the computer will reboot right back into the USB flash drive and you have to pull it out and reboot to let setup continue from the hard drive.

 

I'm not sure what that recovery tool by Kyhl is doing that's different from default installation media though? From the description in that link as well as your description it seems like it's doing exactly the same as the default installation media Windows Setup.

 

Kyhi's Recovery disk will allow you to boot a working copy of Windows from which you can use normal windows operations to copy files out. It has a selection of other tools so very handy to have in tool belt.

As NavyLCDR points out you can further enhance its capabilities.

You don't want to boot multiple times from USB. The reason to enter BIOS was to set secure boot and fast boot.

The real reason I wanted you to have recovery disk was to copy files using file explorer. Depending on how you do the install you can wipe everything, be careful. I would only be wiping system partitions and I would only do it knowing I had data backed up. Call me a cautious but my computer is a commodity, my data is what is important.


Ken