Windows 10: Windows 10 Error Code: 80070003 During "Preparing for installation"

Long and painful process to be honest. I expect this would be a very rare occurrence, it was only due to the fact I broke things a year ago and never noticed. Almost all of this was done booting from the install CD.

• First up I changed my disk to GPT using a tool called gptgen
  • gptgen.exe -w \\.\physicaldrive0
• I had to create the MSR (using diskpart)
  • create partition msr size=128 offset=103424
• I had to set my bad EFI partition to be EFI type (using diskpart)
• I modified the type of my recovery partition (using diskpart)
  • set id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
• At this stage I could start using bootrec commands so I followed this: How to repair UEFI Bootloader in Windows 8 | Windows OS Hub
• Finally boot, msconfig says I have a boot disk and Windows Update works.

A bunch of URLs I was using at the time:

• Sample: Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions by Using Windows PE and DiskPart
• Fixing Windows 8.1 Boot by Create EFI System Partition Manually | Mins Blog
• Create Windows Recovery Environment for Windows 8 | Chaos space
• Rajan : Computer Blog: How to Create a Clean BCD file to fix Windows 7 Boot problem
• faqoverflow.com - Ce site est en vente! - Portail d'informations
• How to repair UEFI Bootloader in Windows 8 | Windows OS Hub

 

Before trying to upgrade Win 8.1 to Win 10 on my new laptop i bought a new SSD for doing the upgrade on. I cloned the original disk to the new SSD and then used Easeus Partition Manager to resize the partitions on the new disk. Then swapped the disks, the new SSD in the laptop and everything worked just fine. Until I tried upgrading to Win 10, then I got the "error 80070003". Impossible to get around that problem, clearing files or folders did not help at all. I then found the suggested methods in the previous comment (that also included this interesting link, Solved - Windows 8.1 Recovery - Could not find recovery environment, where you can see how Easeus PM messed up the partitions and also how to solve the mess). Anyway I decided to do a new clone from the original disk to the new SSD without using any Easeus software and instead I choosed Farstone DriveClone 11 (free for home users) to do the job. In this software it's also possible to set the size of the partitions on the target disk BEFORE cloneing starts (as well as other useful options). So with two SSD's the cloning took about 20 minutes and the partitions om the new disk had the size I've choosen. So in with the new SSD in the laptop and everything worked just fine, no problems booting or anything. Then I started the upgrade to Win 10 and everything ran very smooth without any errors at all and everything worked just fine afterwards.
So it looks like Easeus PM is a Windows 10 upgrade killer but Microsoft knows nothing and Easeus says nothing about that.

 

Will try the suggested link above and report back the results.

HUGE THANKS TO
chfslt AND genet
!!!!

Chfslt pointed us to the exact issue and in the right direction, and genet gave us a solution.


In my case the issue was that I had 3 system partitions but 0 recovery partitions, so by changing ID as suggested in the link genet provided us, I managed to turn one system partition into recovery and that is all it was necessary for Windows 10 upgrade to work!!

I am now running Windows 10 thanks to you guys and thanks to you guys only!!

Please, post this solution on other forums and websites. I love you.

 

You are welcome. Glad we could help.

 

Hello, Having been a Win 10 Insider using my Surface Pro 2 I was disappointed when I had the 80070003 error at 24%. Like others I scoured the forums and finally found a fix that worked for me ... FixMyPC! I'd removed several programmes from my PC to see if they were causing the problem. One of them being the wonderful ccleaner. I downloaded and ran FixMyPC. It found 300 ish errors and then I saw that you can only fix 15 of them and then if you want more you have to pay up. I think it was about £40 a year or something like that.

I ran FixMyPC. It started simultaneously fixing errors in 3 or four categories, got to 15 and asked if I wanted to subscribe; I didn't. I re-installed ccleaner, ran it, restarted the computer, went to Win 10 upgrad and bingo, straight in!! (Well after two or three hours of downloading/configuring/restarting that is!!)

I've also used the free Partition Master v10.0 to partition my 2tb hdd and not that I have no recovery drive. All disks are GPT and I couldn't see how to change them. There is a thread somewhere (which I can't now find) that says the problem could be caused by PM v10.5 but that was close enough for me to chance emailing EaseUS ... and I had a reply within a few hours ... and that was over the weekend!! They suggested I run PM Partition Recovery Wizard but now things are all ticketyboo I think I''' stay as I am .... for now anyway. I

've now installed Win 10 on 2 other machines at home and helped out 'nervous' friends with their installations and all were straightforward. Thank goodness there is life after Win8/8.1! Loving Win 10 ... the best of Win 7 and more.

Phil