Clean installation window 10 on an Intel Nuc

Hi everyone,

I need help with this please. This is my situation. I have an intel nuc5i7ryh that runs Window 10 Home. When I first got the nuc, I bought a retail version of Window 7 Home and installed it on the nuc. Then I upgraded to Window 10 Home on 8/2015 and was using the nuc just fine from that day. The nuc has a Samsung 850 Evo in it so I decided to add another drive to it to make one for the OS and the other for data storage. I got the Samsung 950 Pro and used the Samsung Migration Tool to migrate Window 10 from the Evo to the Samsung 950 Pro. Everything worked fine. I was able to boot from the new 950 Pro just fine. I reformatted the Evo to make it a storage drive as I wanted. All worked fine and I was able to use my nuc for couple hours. Things were all good until after I copied some of my folders and files from an external drive to my nuc's desktop. I saved those folders and files to an external files before this migration process and now I just want to copy them back to my nuc. I really not sure what was wrong with it but after I did that, I was no longer to boot from my Samsung 950 Pro again. The nuc does not work any more. When I power it up, it never gets to the window login page. A message pop up saying it attempts to repair the error...but it will never fix it. There are some other advanced options that I can choose but none of the helps. It not lets me to restore or anything. So now I am stuck. I am thinking about a clean re-install of Window 10 on the Samsung 950 Pro. I want to go with a clean installation using the USB (as the instructions in this page https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10). Will this approach work ? Or I have to do it the hard way- install the Window 7 on the Samsung 950 Pro, activate, then upgrade to Window 10 ? I am wondering if I can just go with approach 1 and that is it. Or I really need to do it the hard way , approach 2.

Thanks.

Just clean install Windows 10. When asked for a product key click on "I don't have a product key", "Skip" or "do this later". It will reactive itself automatically once it is connected to the internet.

NavyLCDR said:

Just clean install Windows 10. When asked for a product key click on "I don't have a product key", "Skip" or "do this later". It will reactive itself automatically once it is connected to the internet.

Thank you for you response, NavyLCDR. Yes, I did try a clean install Window 10 but it failed with message "windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.". I already followed some of the instructions in this thread: (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...62af309?page=2) but it still did not work. The first error is gone but now it has another error message "Windows can not be installed to this disk. This computer hardware may not support booting to this disk..."
What can I do ? Thanks.

htp367 said:

Yes, I did try a clean install Window 10 but it failed with message "windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.".
What can I do ? Thanks.

1. How did you make the Windows 10 USB install flash drive? What options did you set, if you used a program such as RUFUS.

2. Did you try selecting custom install when given the option and deleting all the partitions on the SSD then installing to the unallocated free space?

The cannot install to GPT style disk means that either the BIOS is set for legacy or CSM mode and not UEFI, you are attempting to install 32 bit Windows 10 on an UEFI system, or the flash drive was created in such a way that does not support UEFI.

NavyLCDR said:

1. How did you make the Windows 10 USB install flash drive? What options did you set, if you used a program such as RUFUS.

-No, I was using "the media creation tool" process from this page: Windows 10

2. Did you try selecting custom install when given the option and deleting all the partitions on the SSD then installing to the unallocated free space?

-Yes, I did try to select custom install. I was not deleting all the partitions on the SSDs. I just deleted the partition on the SSD (disk 1 and I think it is the SamSung 950 pro) that I want to install wd 10.

The cannot install to GPT style disk means that either the BIOS is set for legacy or CSM mode and not UEFI, you are attempting to install 32 bit Windows 10 on an UEFI system, or the flash drive was created in such a way that does not support UEFI.

- In my BIOS I have both UEFI and legacy set. It will boot with UEFI and then legacy.

cereberus said:

Just set it to eufi only, download iso and use rufus, selecting a gpt partition scheme (note select iso first, then select partition type).

Yep. Stick with one or the other, at any rate. Go either all UEFI and GPT partition or Legacy and MBR partition.

Thanks guys. FYI, I did set it to uefi only and that did not work either. I am going to make an uefi bootable ubs using rufus with the iso.
I just downloaded the iso. It is weird because when I use my window 10 PC visit the microsoft download page, I can not find the download link for the ISO. Weird. So I had to use my mac to download it. Anyway, I got it now. Does the file system on the usb matter? Should it be fat32 or ntfs ?

Thanks.

Fat32

NavyLCDR said:

Fat32

Hello navylcdr,

Thank you. I will let you guys know how it is going. Thanks.