Clean install on unsupported hardware. Not sure what just happened. Could it be a Rufus 'thing', or....

In a nutshell... and the first intro bit is just for background info...

Following on from this self inflicted problem (many thanks @OAT , that install went without hitch, all good, no great in fact )
Unable to download Dev Build ISO's from Microsoft... this was self inflicted. How do I resolve this?

I thought I would update my old unsupported laptop to the latest public release. Even after two weeks it seems Microsoft still don't like me and I get the same errors now when trying to download the official Microsoft ISO's. Error codes confirm they think I've been naughty. Even leaving the router off for several hours to get a new IP did not fix it.

I 'spoke' (web chat) to MS and they confirm that is what the codes mean. Have to say the support was good, no waiting. Wow. They did say it should only be temporary though although they could not give a time frame.

So on to what happened. I downloaded the ISO from UUPDUMP and used RUFUS to create a bootable drive for unsupported hardware. All good.

Onto the install and I've done this many many times over the years using the install media to delete all partitions and take the drive down to unallocated space and then reinstall. This time a big problem, not all the partitions could be deleted (it is a single 500Gb SSD). Some of my partitions seemed duplicated too as viewed in the install media's management screen. One entry line showed 0Gb of 0Gb used or something bizarre.

It all had a bit of a wrong look to it all.

Anyhow I deleted all I could and realised that the 170Gb partition that would not delete was in fact the C drive containing the previous Windows install. Why would that be non delete-able? The option to delete was greyed out every time I selected this partition for deletion. All I could do was carry on and Windows did actually install OK although I was curious just where exactly.

It seems it installed onto the partition that had the previous install. The 170Gb partition was now showing 169.3Gb. The disk management console shows a 100Mb first partition as expected, then the now 169.3Gb containing windows and then all the rest unallocated. No Windows recovery partition in sight.

reagentc /info says disabled and when enabling it says 'can not be found'.

Opening the C drive shows a Windows Old folder but that is totally empty and does not show as delete-able on a disk clean although it deletes manually OK.

So what the heck has happened?

Could the file table have been corrupt in some way. I do recall months ago playing around with moving, deleting, recreating and re-enabling the recovery partition as a learning exercise. Why would the install media not let me delete all partitions?

Just all a bit of a puzzle.

Mooly said:

Opening the C drive shows a Windows Old folder but that is totally empty and does not show as delete-able on a disk clean although it deletes manually OK.

Click to expand...

@garlin has noted that the new setup for Windows 25H2 treats installation as an upgrade, even on a new install, hence the creation of that windows.old folder. In other words, this is now normal and expected behavior.

As for not being able to delete that C: partition, try this:

While in Windows setup, press SHIFT + F10 to open a command prompt. Run diskpart. In diskpart, run list disk and note the disk IDs. In the next command substitute the disk number for the "x". Make 100% sure you are using the correct disk id because we are wiping that disk.

Run these commands (again, replace x with the correct disk ID)

select disk x
clean
exit (to exit diskpart)
exit (to exit the command prompt)

If you are on the screen asking you to select the disk to install Windows on, select the option to refresh.

hsehestedt said:

has noted that the new setup for Windows 25H2 treats installation as an upgrade, even on a new install, hence the creation of that windows.old folder. In other words, this is now normal and expected behavior.

Click to expand...

That's an interesting one. Thanks.

This was the screen I was on (taken from Brinks TUT) and each time I selected what would be Disk 0 Partition 3 in this image to delete that partition the Delete Partition option fades out to grey. I've done this so many times in the past without issue.



All seems OK however and I've expanded the C drive back so it shows as 170Gb in File Explorer and created the other partitions as needed.

I might investigate creating a recovery partition for interest at some point which I assume would go at the end of the disk.

I must install Macrium next but I have just done a system image with Windows built in own utility.