Issue encountered while transferring Windows from USB drive.
Issue encountered while transferring Windows from USB drive.
I started assembling my first PC and opened the Windows installer to download the operating system. Everything seemed normal until I was asked to pick the hard drive I’d use. After choosing it, I clicked next and received a message saying we couldn’t create new partitions or find existing ones. I had borrowed a used hard drive from a friend, but both of us had erased all data on it. I’m not concerned about any loss of content as long as something remains intact; I’m unsure what the warning means or how to resolve it. Troubleshooting steps: I watched YouTube tutorials about this problem, tried following the commands with the disc part, but it didn’t help. I searched Google for possible solutions but didn’t find anything useful.
Hi @BillyPoirier Consider creating a Linux Live USB and starting your system from it. Once you have the Linux desktop, open a terminal and run: sudo fdisk -l You should see something like /dev/sda like this: Disk /dev/sda: 186.31 GiB, 200049647616 bytes, 390721968 sectors. With your disk ID, execute: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 This will repair all data on the drive, including your boot partition. Good luck!
It's a Linux operating system powered by a USB drive. It's excellent for performing system checks. You'll need to install Rufus to prepare the USB: https://rufus.ie/. For beginners, Ubuntu is the most accessible distro: https://ubuntu.com/download. In the image I shared, the red arrow points to your USB when connected before launching Rufus. The next arrow selects the Ubuntu ISO file, and the third shows options for MBR or GPT(uEFI) for the boot sector. Once Rufus finishes creating the drive, start your system with it and execute the commands listed.
This method helps remove debris from the drive. You can resume using Windows afterward.
During the initial setup of Windows (10...), do you see any pre-existing partitions on the target drive? A new installation will remove them, but it's wise to clear existing ones beforehand—especially since you mentioned minimal data loss is expected.