Lenovo X1 Factory Reset - Win 10

Hi all,

FInally, I got myself a new T series notebook. I'm looking to get rid of my X1 Carbon (Gen 2). A few months back, I did a factory reset from Windows 10 and it went smoothly, but when I attempted it a few days back, I kept getting the error "there was a problem resetting your pc".

I downloaded and installed media creation tool for windows and put it on a usb. I'm now stuck where I cannot install Windows on any of the partitions. See attached, here is where I'm stuck. Windows isn't allowing me to install on the primary drive. I tried to delete the partition and then click new partition but the same error comes up "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. Selected disk has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks. I was going to delete the system and lenovo recovery partitions but wasn't sure, I figured I would ask first. Should I be deleting all 3 partitions and then attempt to create a new partition? Would the re-install create new partitions for the system and lenovo recovery drive?

Thanks

dalchina said:

Hi, this may help- from the extensive Tutorial section, which you're free to browse and search:
Clean Install Windows 10 Windows 10 Tutorials

You may keep the manufacturer's Recovery partition (perhaps some 20Gb) - don't confuse that with the much smaller unlettered Recover partition Windows creates which you should delete as part of clean installing.

But if you're never going to use it- then feel free to delete it too.

A clean install of Windows knows nothing about your manufacturer's Recovery partition- if it exists, it's just a partition containing some data.

Note- clean install Windows to unallocated space - not an existing partition. (as per section 11 on).

Hi there! That is a great guide.

I was scared of deleting partition 1 and 2, I wasn't sure if it would brick the system at all. I only delete the big partition in hopes that windows would install on that one only. So at this point, I believe the suggestion is to delete all of drive 0s partition except the usb, and attempt to create a new setup from there?

I'm worried about that error also, will I keep getting that after I delete all of the partitions, then what do I do from there? I attached the error. Am I getting this because I didn't delete the existing system and recovery partitions?

Ok, so I wiped all 3 partitions so I now have just the one unpartitioned space. I read quite a few guides and watches videos, it's how many have been doing it.
I'm still getting the same error! This is beyond frustrating.

Finally got windows installed. I had to convert the harddisk from mbr to gpt via the CLI. After that, was good to go.