Windows 10 won't boot - fresh install

This is tech. I, nor anyone can guarantee 100% outcome, however, I can say this is a proven method taught to me by the best here on the forum.

No need to take the drive out. You'll clean and format it off the install thumb.

Tony K said:

This is tech. I, nor anyone can guarantee 100% outcome, however, I can say this is a proven method taught to me by the best here on the forum.

:) I wasn't expecting a guarantee! I've been in computers long enough to know that it all depends on how many buckets of goat entrails you sacrificed to the Great God Of Computers that morning!

Tony K said:

No need to take the drive out. You'll clean and format it off the install thumb.

I had to take it out to back up the data that had changed since Sunday's disk image. Once it was plugged into the lap top, it was as easy to clean it there as to do it when reinstalling.

What about the commands you were going to suggest? Any benefit in any of that?

Thanks again for all the help. Shame there wasn't a better way to do it.

LOL! > Goat sacrifice.

You'll basically be following this step in this tutorial for starters, so please familiarize yourself with that. In the mean time I have to find a thread. I'll be back.

DISKPART - How to Partition GPT disk Installation Upgrade Tutorials

Why do I need to do all that, why not just delete the partitions on the disk and let Windows create new ones?

Yes, we'll go that route, but to clean it once you’re in OOBE mode following that tutorial and have found the correct disk (usually 0) then perform this tutorial from our sister site to clean. Formating a disk is not the same as cleaning.

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

Then close out Command and continue with the install.

Is this a MS account you set up BTW?

First thing is to go into your BIOS and set it to default > Save changes. This will get it back to UEFI mode. Windows should then format as a GPT scheme.

Consider using a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures and post images into the thread.

OK, so I have to confess to being a little hasty. After your post when you said the only way was to reinstall, I put the SSD into my lap top to get the latest data off, then used Computer Management to delete all partitions from the disk, set the BIOS to UEFI enabled and reinstalled form the USB. It was only after I'd deleted the partitions that your post about diskpart came in.

So, having deleted the partitions, as opposed to merely reformatting, was that good enough?

I'm now at the stage of having a fresh installation of Windows, which boots fine, but doesn't recognise my HDD. The drive seems to work fine, in that I can plug it into my lap top and browse around it, but when I plug it back into the PC, it boots, but neither File Explorer nor Computer Management recognise it. This HDD has been in the machine pretty much since I got it, and has been working fine. When I reboot, the BIOS display shows both drives.

What do I do now? Do I continue from where I am, or should I back out and go down the diskpart route? As I said, I set UEFI in the BIOS before booting from the USB, so from what you said, I guess Windows should have formatted the disk as GPT (says he as if he had the vaguest clue what that meant!). If I do go down the diskpart route, where do I generate the script? That seems to assume you have a working installation, which I didn't. I do now, but it's a fresh one since then.

Thanks again. Please advise what I should do now.

Sorry I took so long, but the BIOS should have been set to default not just UEFI mode. Can you see that secondary drive in your BIOS at all in the boot section?

zbook said:

Consider using a camera or smart phone camera to take pictures and post images into the thread.

What pictures would you like to see?When I first started the thread, all I got was a blank screen, so nothing to see, now I can boot to Windows, but can't see my second drive, so again nothing to see.

Thanks for the reply.