Partitions Thwarting Install on HP Laptop

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  1. Posts : 113
    Win 10 Home
       #1

    Partitions Thwarting Install on HP Laptop


    Hi all,

    Rather than go it alone, I'm asking for some tag along assistance.

    I have a HP Touch LapTop that came with Win 8.1.
    It is HP product # 15-f010wm
    500 GB storage
    4 GB Ram


    I upgraded to Win 10 last year and my daughter brought it back to me for fixing because she couldn't get the Wi-Fi turned on, and it was slow as a cart drawn by a crippled bison.

    I resolved the Wi-Fi issue but I've never seen any machine this slow. Not even a 10 inch with an Intel Celeron my ex had some years ago. This thing is so slow as to be unusable.

    She said it started being like that last year.

    Rather than do the regular malware cleanup, I want to do a tactical nuke and reinstall.

    It has at least 6 partitions. I want to keep 3.

    The one where Win 10 will be installed, the one where all her files are stored, and the OEM recovery partition.

    What can I do to partition this since it won't boot?

    I attempted to repartition with EaseUS partition manager but it stalled on reboot, and won't reboot since. The reason I tried to repartition is because it wouldn't allow me to install Win 10 from a Win 10 CD. What it would do is hang on reboot so the install would never initialize. I don't know if it's because of the UEFI bootloader that HP has on the thing. My daughter did tell me that was one of the issues she experienced before. On reboots, it would randomly hang and never reboot.

    Anyone have any suggestions on how to delete all the partitions I don't want (since it won't boot), so I can install a clean copy of Win 10? I have tried deleting or reformatting the partitions from the boot CD I'm using but that's a no go. I can't tell if that's because of UEFI.

    ?Partitions Thwarting Install on HP Laptop-img_20160326_102610.jpgPartitions Thwarting Install on HP Laptop-img_20160326_100919.jpg
      My Computers


  2. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #2

    Hi there
    download bootable copy of GPARTED, boot it and delete partitions as required.

    Note : W10 doesn't like installing if you have an SD card inserted into the machine or > 4 HDD's / partitions (or a combination of both).

    Remove SD card until after W10 install -- then it's fine. If you are using UEFI your HDD's must be formatted GPT (at least the BOOT HDD must be).

    After install no probs with nr of HDD's / partitions.

    If you want to keep the OEM recovery partition before removing it from the internal laptop HDD why not download FREE MACRIUM and image it (i.e copy to external device) before starting Windows install.

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 1,983
    Windows 10 x86 14383 Insider Pro and Core 10240
       #3

    By a "tactical nuke and install" do you mean wipe all partitions and start with a clean 500GB disk?

    I'm not sure what partitions you want to keep? Don't do this if you want to keep any data on the disk

    If so on the windows setup screen you showed above you can press shift+F10 to get to a command prompt.
    type diskpart
    type list disk
    type sel disk 0
    type list part
    if the disk is offline, you may need to type online
    type clean all
    type exit
    you may need to type exit once more to close the command prompt.
    it should have no partitions, so refresh the setup screen
    you should have just one entry
    disk 0 unallocated space

    more help here on diskpart

    Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command - Windows 7 Help Forums
      My Computers


  4. Posts : 113
    Win 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #4

    jimbo45 said:
    Hi there
    download bootable copy of GPARTED, boot it and delete partitions as required.
    Hi Jimbo.
    Was just doing this.
    Question though. Will this work on a 64 bit system? It say this on their website:

    GParted Live is a small bootable GNU/Linux distribution for x86 based computers.

    jimbo45 said:
    Note : W10 doesn't like installing if you have an SD card inserted into the machine or > 4 HDD's / partitions (or a combination of both).

    Remove SD card until after W10 install -- then it's fine. If you are using UEFI your HDD's must be formatted GPT (at least the BOOT HDD must be).
    I don't have a SD card in there. No SD card reader.
    I don't understand much about UEFI, but one of the error messages it threw was that Win 10 cannot be installed on a GPT drive... Or something like that. Didn't get an opportunity to take a pic.

    jimbo45 said:
    If you want to keep the OEM recovery partition before removing it from the internal laptop HDD why not download FREE MACRIUM and image it (i.e copy to external device) before starting Windows install.

    Cheers
    jimbo
    I do have Macrium, never leave home without it, and that's a good idea.
    I'll get on that. Thanks for the suggestions.

    Do you think the OEM has any special partitions/dependencies for the recovery partition?
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 113
    Win 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Fafhrd said:
    By a "tactical nuke and install" do you mean wipe all partitions and start with a clean 500GB disk?

    I'm not sure what partitions you want to keep? Don't do this if you want to keep any data on the disk

    Code:
    If so on the windows setup screen you showed above you can press shift+F10 to get to a command prompt.
    type diskpart
    type list disk
    type sel disk 0
    type list part
    if the disk is offline, you may need to type online
    type clean all
    type exit
    you may need to type exit once more to close the command prompt.
    it should have no partitions, so refresh the setup screen
    you should have just  one entry 
    disk 0 unallocated space
    
    more help here on diskpart
    
    Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command  - Windows 7 Help Forums
    Thanks for the suggestion Fafhrd. But I do want to keep some data, that's why I said tactical nuke. Want to nuke selected partitions not all of them.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 1,983
    Windows 10 x86 14383 Insider Pro and Core 10240
       #6

    Yes but which (partition number) do you want to keep?
      My Computers


  7. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #7

    What I would do is make a DVD or USB flash drive of Kyhi's recovery drive:
    Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

    Boot the computer from it, run MiniTool Partition Wizard.
    Delete the partitions you don't want. Move the partitions you want to keep to the end of the disk. Make sure to click the apply button. You should end up with a big, unallocated space at the front of the disk.

    Make a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB Flash Drive. Boot the computer from that. Select the Custom Install option, install Windows 10 to the big unallocated space.

    Actually, I lied. What I would really do is back up the hard drive to an external hard drive using Macrium Reflect Free (also on Kyhi's recovery drive), and then wipe the entire hard drive and install Windows 10 to the empty unallocated space which would be the entire hard drive. Then copy back from the backup image the data I wanted back on the laptop.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 15,441
    Windows10
       #8

    Ok - burried in the above email chain is a statement that OP cannot install Windows as disk is not gpt formatted.

    So OP either needs to set pc to install as a legacy bios install, or convert disk to gpt format to do a uefi install. You can use minitools partition manager free to convert frive to gpt withput data loss

    OP - you need to clarify which partition you want to keep.
    Really better to backup data on that partition and wipe all drives.
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 113
    Win 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #9

    cereberus said:
    Ok - burried in the above email chain is a statement that OP cannot install Windows as disk is not gpt formatted.

    So OP either needs to set pc to install as a legacy bios install, or convert disk to gpt format to do a uefi install. You can use minitools partition manager free to convert frive to gpt withput data loss

    OP - you need to clarify which partition you want to keep.
    Really better to backup data on that partition and wipe all drives.
    Hey cerebereus,

    When I say keep, what I meant is I only want there to be 3 partitions. I know some of these partitions were created by HP's update software.

    I don't think I'm going to be reinstalling the update software, I can always download what I need from the HP website. I may not even need that stuff. We'll see.

    I don't care if it's a UEFI boot, or a legacy bios boot except if it will somehow confuse my daughter later on. If it will boot in legacy mode, and she won't have to care what her bios is that's fine with me. If it's better to keep the original uefi boot configuration, I'm fine with that too. So long as every time it reboots, her computer won't do anything wonky, it'll just work as she expects, I'm happy either way.
      My Computers


  10. Posts : 113
    Win 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #10

    NavyLCDR said:
    What I would do is make a DVD or USB flash drive of Kyhi's recovery drive:
    Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

    Boot the computer from it, run MiniTool Partition Wizard.
    Delete the partitions you don't want. Move the partitions you want to keep to the end of the disk. Make sure to click the apply button. You should end up with a big, unallocated space at the front of the disk.
    This is why I come here. Fantastic sir. All my recs to you.
    This is brilliant software.

    Solved a whole bunch of issues, one go.

    NavyLCDR said:
    Make a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB Flash Drive. Boot the computer from that. Select the Custom Install option, install Windows 10 to the big unallocated space.
    I never like the boot stuff to be on the same partition as the files etc. I don't know where I picked that up, but that works out better for PC's I have to occasionally service. I'm COMING Grandma!
    Why do you insist on filling out these surveys? They aren't going to give you a free IPad, and you don't even like the one Jackie bought you. This is why you keep getting infected.

    When this happens, I can just restore a Macrium image of the boot drive. A couple updates and she's back up and running.
      My Computers


 

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