Solved Windows 11 clean installation will not go beyond 10%

My primary home computer, a Dell Inspiron 15 Series (5565), which has been working well before this, passed the Windows 11 compatibility test, except for one issue: it has an unsupported AMD processor. Therefore, I had to resort to using Rufus to perform a clean install of Windows 11. This hasn't gone well. I successfully downloaded the ISO image and went through the process of using Rufus to prepare an installation USB drive and then rebooted from the drive with these settings (I have tried with secure boot on and off):

The install process seemed to be going well and (I think) initially reached beyond 50%, but then rebooted and required me to go through the language selection and setup options again, with the "we're getting a few things ready" message, acceptance of the Licence Agreement and selection of the install drive partition. However, on repeating this process, the "Installing Windows 11" screen quickly reaches 10% complete and then will go no further no matter how much time I leave it. Moreover, the part-installation now seems to have corrupted the drive so that it won't boot at all from the hard drive (just repeatedly re-starting in a loop!).

I really need some help here! How do I fix this?

One point of note is that when the drive selection window comes up, there seems to be a lot of partitions on my hard drive:

Is this normal? Should I somehow remove these?

Any help really appreciated as this is getting very stressful!

Hi, Graham, welcome.


You need to clean the installation drive so all partitions are gone.
IMPORTANT: if you can, disconnect any other drives connected to your system.

Restart the install


When you get to the following screen, use Shift + F10 to start the Diskpart Clean process

• During install, when this first window appears:

• Hit the Shift + F10 keys
  • A command window will open
  • Press enter after typing in each command below and let it complete the command, you’ll know when each command is done as it will repeat the command to you or give a result for the command.
  • Type; diskpart > [enter]
  • Type; list disk [enter]
  • Type; select disk X [enter]
    • X being the drive position/number of your install drive. (The result of list disk)
      • IMPORTANT: Be careful that you are cleaning the right drive/disk, hence disconnecting any secondary drives. Don’t accidentally diskpart your USB Pen drive. It will have the disk size next to each disk entry.
    
    
  • Type; clean [enter]
  • Type; convert gpt [enter]
  • Type; exit [enter]
  • Close the command window
  • Continue with the install

Good that you’re clean installing. The drive seems to be a mess?

Thanks so much for your help!

Pressing Shift F10 doesn't do anything at all!

Should I try to delete the Disk 0 partitions at this window?:

Not sure where that leaves me with the "Convert GPT" command, though...

I don’t know why Shift + F10 doesnt work at the first User Interface screen, maybe the 24H2 ISO? But it’s the first I have seen it.

You could wait for someone else to comment if you like, but at this point, yes, if it were me, I would delete all partitions that are Disk 0 (Only Disk 0)

Once you’re left with 1 unallocated space (Disk 0) and the USB drive (that you leave as is) you can select the unallocated space for install.

Don’t worry about the GPT, I’d suspect it will be installed and drive set as GPT by default.

If this is a laptop, the F10 issue may be related to a Fn (Function) key, I am not sure.

Thanks Sinto!

I have deleted all of the Drive 0 partitions and pointed the installation to the unallocated space as you suggested. The install has now gone beyond 10%, so fingers crossed that it will go to completion. I will report back if successful or not.

Really not sure why I had so many partitions, although I did notice that Windows Update severely slowed my computer over the last year or so...

Great news so far then, cheers, Graham

If you created the install media using RUFUS (As you mentioned) then I’d assume it would have been created as a GPT Partition Scheem, so should be all good.

Partition Scheme can be found on the first screen in RUFUS where you’re selecting the USB and ISO.

Yes, I didn't change any of the Rufus defaults and I vaguely remember GPT being selected...

Hi Sinto,

It's all good - Windows 11 seems to have installed fairly smoothly after the partition removals...

Graham S said:

Hi Sinto,

It's all good - Windows 11 seems to have installed fairly smoothly after the partition removals...

Click to expand...

Great news, Graham