Solved Clean-Install of 22631.2506 Pro fails repeatedly

Mark Phelps said:

I used the osdump site because I read on a thread here, when UUPDUMP stopped working, that they had changed to this other site.

Here's screenshot of the home page for that site -- looks legit to me:

Click to expand...

The alternate site was uupdump.ee or something.

The thing from osdump.com started out OK, but about halfway through the download portion... Bitdefender flipped out. It flagged about 15+ files.

I feel bad that I didn't notice the weird web address. I must be getting old. LOL

Ghot said:

The alternate site was uupdump.ee or something.

The thing from osdump.com started out OK, but about halfway through the download portion... Bitdefender flipped out. It flagged about 15+ files.

I feel bad that I didn't notice the weird web address. I must be getting old. LOL

Click to expand...

OK, so I used the script from your link, -- and not surprisingly(!), it worked fine.

So, now I have an ISO and can continue the work. Thanks again for the link.

Mark Phelps said:

OK, so I used the script from your link, -- and not surprisingly(!), it worked fine.

So, now I have an ISO and can continue the work. Thanks again for the link.

Click to expand...

Every Fall, for years now, I have done a clean install of Windows to get rid of junk files and other stuff.

This time, I have run into an impasse -- even though I have followed the tutorials steps here.

I am running Win11 Pro Bld 22631.2715 and have built a USB stick after downloading the ISO file from MS.

I booted into Win11 Beta and removed all the partitions on the Win11 Pro SSD.

I then booted from the USB stick, skipped the product key, selected Win11 Pro, found the empty drive, and selected continue.

When the process continued, I got an error message about: We couldn't create a new partition ..., so I followed the suggestion on the page and restarted the install. When I got to the partitioning screen again, I saw that the Win11 Pro drive now had three partitions on it now, so I selected the large primary partition -- but got the same error message.

When I ran into this in the past, restarting the install after partitioning the drive always worked -- this time, it does not.

I am posting this from my Win11 Beta install.

Don't know what to try next, as the tutorial indicates what I have done should have worked.

Mark Phelps said:

Don't know what to try next, as the tutorial indicates what I have done should have worked.

Click to expand...

Boot into the installation USB flash drive. When you get to the first screen, press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. Run:
diskpart
list disk
select disk # <- replace # with the actual disk number for the disk you want to install Windows to
clean <- this will completely erase the selected disk above, make sure it is the disk you want to install to and you have nothing on it you need to save.
Exit
Exit

Then proceed with the installation.

NavyLCDR said:

Boot into the installation USB flash drive. When you get to the first screen, press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt. Run:
diskpart
list disk
select disk # <- replace # with the actual disk number for the disk you want to install Windows to
clean <- this will completely erase the selected disk above, make sure it is the disk you want to install to and you have nothing on it you need to save.
Exit
Exit

Then proceed with the installation.

Click to expand...

OK, I got a little farther -- to the next screen, but then I got an error 0xC0000005 unexpected error

One of the "solutions" I read on this is to remove all the other drives -- which I can't easily do because they are all NVMe SSDs with heatsinks, and I would have to scrape off the heatsinks to remove them. In the past, they were 2.5" SSDs, so I could just disconnect them.

Could this be due to an error in the USB stick -- since I used RUFUS to create it from the MS ISO? If so, I could try running the MCT again and this time, creating the USB stick instead of downloading the ISO.

It probably is an error on the USB flash drive. You do not need to remove all other drives when installing Windows 10 or 11. I never have.

Mark Phelps said:

OK, I got a little farther -- to the next screen, but then I got an error 0xC0000005 unexpected error

One of the "solutions" I read on this is to remove all the other drives -- which I can't easily do because they are all NVMe SSDs with heatsinks, and I would have to scrape off the heatsinks to remove them. In the past, they were 2.5" SSDs, so I could just disconnect them.

Could this be due to an error in the USB stick -- since I used RUFUS to create it from the MS ISO? If so, I could try running the MCT again and this time, creating the USB stick instead of downloading the ISO.

Click to expand...

I think you are making things too complicated. Use the MCT to create the USB boot disk. After you boot with the boot disk do a custom install where you delete all existing partitions until the the boot disk only contains unallocated space. Then click next and let the setup create all the partitions it needs.

BTW, I just reinstalled Windows 11 a few weeks ago. The computer has two M.2 SSDs so removing the 2nd one was not an option. I had no problems leaving it in.

Not making any real progress ...

1) Using diskpart -- select the unallocated space, gets to Installing Windows 0%, errors out with: Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation... restart

So I restarted the install, get to partitioning screen, select the large primary partition on the drive, errors out with: Couldn't create a new partition ...

2) Using installer -- when partitioning screen comes up, delete all of the partitions on the disk and continue, gets to Installing Windows 0%, errors out with: Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation. When I then restart the install, errors out with the same error message as above.

I did some more reading on the error messages and one suggestion was to ensure no other USB drives were connected, so I unplugged the portable SSD I had plugged into the back of the case. Retried both installs -- no improvement.

These are using a new USB stick I made directly using the Win 11 23H2 MCT.

Are you selecting Unformatted or Unallocated? The whole boot drive should be Unallocated when you start the Windows 11 setup?

MisterEd said:

Are you selecting Unformatted or Unallocated? The whole boot drive should be Unallocated when you start the Windows 11 setup?

Click to expand...

I'm selecting the unallocated space -- in this case, the entire drive.

To solve your problem a full diskmanagement screenshot is necessary!
Showing all disks on your PC.

POLYSIUS said:

To solve your problem a full diskmanagement screenshot is necessary!
Showing all disks on your PC.

Click to expand...

OK, here it is: disk 0 is the Linux drive, disk 3 is the former Win11 Pro drive, disk 5 is an external SSD. Disk 3 is in the state it was in when the install failed the last time.

The answer was already given in my reply #27.​

If you don't know how to deal with several EFI-Partitions leave it. The setup can't handle that as well.

POLYSIUS said:

The answer was already given in my reply #27.​

If you don't know how to deal with several EFI-Partitions leave it. The setup can't handle that as well.

Click to expand...

I admit I did not go back and read the four pages of threads -- so I did not see your #27.

But I did just read that, and if I understand what you said, then I should be able to do the following:
1) Extract the ISO files into a folder
2) Boot into Win10 Pro
3) Navigate to the extracted ISO folder and run setup.exe
4) When the installer gets to the partitioning page, delete all the partitions on disk 3 (former Win11 Pro drive) and continue
5) Setup should then continue without issues

Have I got that right?

The steps 1 - 5 work successfully when you boot into the recovery environment and there is only one EFI partition.

(It is possible to hide EFI-Partitions or transfer an EFI to a Non-EFI partition temporaryly. That's not our way!)
You have to remove/unplug the disk 0 Linux first!

Reboot into WIN 10. Check your recovery environment cmd (admin) reagentc /info
enabled?
Then run cmd (admin)
diskpart
sel disk 0 (should be WIN11Beta check in diskmanagement first!)
sel par 1
format quick fs=fat32
exit
bcdboot E:\Windows
Now the WIN11Beta bootloader is added to the Bootmanager.

If your recovery is enabled press <shift> + Start Reboot
in command prompt navigate to your extracted ISO folder
cd /d <path to setup folder> and enter setup.exe (If you open Notepad and use it's explorer it's easy to find)
In the partitioning page select the correct disk and delete all partitions and continue.
If your Recovery can't be activated, use USB to install.
The new bootloader (W11) will be added to the bootmanager.
That's it.

POLYSIUS said:

The steps 1 - 5 work successfully when you boot into the recovery environment and there is only one EFI partition.

(It is possible to hide EFI-Partitions or transfer an EFI to a Non-EFI partition temporaryly. That's not our way!)
You have to remove/unplug the disk 0 Linux first!

Reboot into WIN 10. Check your recovery environment cmd (admin) reagentc /info
enabled?
Then run cmd (admin)
diskpart
sel disk 0 (should be WIN11Beta check in diskmanagement first!)
sel par 1
format quick fs=fat32
exit
bcdboot E:\Windows
Now the WIN11Beta bootloader is added to the Bootmanager.

If your recovery is enabled press <shift> + Start Reboot
in command prompt navigate to your extracted ISO folder
cd /d <path to setup folder> and enter setup.exe (If you open Notepad and use it's explorer it's easy to find)
In the partitioning page select the correct disk and delete all partitions and continue.
If your Recovery can't be activated, use USB to install.
The new bootloader (W11) will be added to the bootmanager.
That's it.

Click to expand...

Sorry, did not work. Got all the way through your steps and into the actual installation, but when I then rebooted, I got an error 34.

So, I "bit the bullet", removed all the drives but the Win11 drive, rebooted from the Win11 USB stick and reinstalled that way.

I'm into 11 install and since I don't want to be forced into an MSN login, I disconnected the ethernet cable -- but I can't proceed.

But ... this is an entirely different issue, which I will work separately.

Thanks for all your efforts -- I wish they would have worked out for me.

Mark Phelps said:

. . . , but when I then rebooted, I got an error 34.

Click to expand...

I have no idea what that means. Did you try to boot into the Recovery environment and got a BSOD?

POLYSIUS said:

I have no idea what that means. Did you try to boot into the Recovery environment and got a BSOD?

Click to expand...

No, I had completed the initial installation and the PC was rebooting to do the final phase, when I got the BSOD with the code.

I gave up at that point -- but when examining the PC, determined that the only OS nvme drive connected to the motherboard directly was the Win11 pro drive. So, I disconnected the other drives, including removing an add-on card, rebooted from the USB stick, followed your directions about deleting the partitions -- and the install went to completion.

Again, thanks for your help on this.

I am marking this as solved as I now know how to do this.