Windows 10: Windows 11 installation error. Can't delete/clean disk or partitions.

My laptop keeps restarting due to an error, so I bought a USB flash drive to solve it. I downloaded the Windows update file from the website, transferred it to my USB, and then plugged it into the laptop. I initiated the Windows setup, clicked on 'Install Now,' then went to go to "where do you want to install windows?" and i tried all partitions and it doesn't work, I cant delete it either, and i keep encountering the error message "Windows cannot be installed to this disk" while trying to install Windows. Therefore i searched online for some solutions and found none, they said delete the part

:)

 

W7 Hard drive partition issue

to get rid of that 100 meg windows partition that setup creates for you on a new install on a blank hdd:

- press shift+f10 when on the partition management screen in setup <-- this opens a command prompt
- diskpart <-- start the windows command line partition management tool
- list disk <--- list the installed hdds in this computer for the next step
- select disk 0 <- might have to replace 0 with the number of the correct disk
- clean <-- this will erase all data on the disk you selected one step up- dont use the wrong disk!
- create partition primary <- creates a primary partition taking up all space on the drive, adjust the command if necessary
- exit, exit to exit diskpart and the command prompt
- click refresh in partition manager and select your newly created partition and install to that

 

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.

 

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