Installing: Windows can't be installed on this drive.

POKERWOLFG · 11 May 2018

Hi Windows peeps.

I've got the job of reloading Windows on my girl's computer, and I'm running into a problem installing it via USB.

I formatted the HDD, before finding out that the laptop possibly had drivers on it already.

Now I'm presented with the Windows installation asking "Where do you want to install Windows?", however the only drive listed is "Drive 0 Unallocated Space", with a total size of 0MB and 0MB of free space.

An error is shown - Windows can't be installed on this drive - with detailed information saying:
"This partition is too small. Make the size of this partition at least 12327MB or select another partition.

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the BIOS menu."

I've looked at the BIOS (which is InsydH20 and offers very few options) and there is nothing labelled "Disk Controller" or similar that can be changed.

My understanding to this point is that I need to pre-load the driver for the laptop's funky drive (Acer Aspire ES 15, product number ES1-523-41EW).

Clicking "Load driver" and selecting the IO driver I downloaded from Acer's website (Product support) returns me to the "Where do you want to intsall Windows" screen, this time showing no drives at all.

I'm hoping the community could point me in the right direction to get Windows recognizing the HDD and proceeding with the install.

Thanks for helping!

Bree · 11 May 2018

Welcome to TenForums @POKERWOLFG

POKERWOLFG said:

...I'm running into a problem installing it via USB.

I formatted the HDD...

How did you do that? You couldn't format it from the windows that was already installed, it shouldn't let you format the drive it is running from :)

When you boot from the install usb, at the bottom left of the 'Install now' screen there's a 'Repair this PC' option. Take that, then click Troubleshoot to get to the Advanced options. Here you can open a command prompt.

In the command prompt type DISKPART then at the diskpart prompt type LIST DISK and identify the disk number of the HDD, it will probably be Disk 0. Assuming it is disk 0, type these commands which will remove all partitions from the HDD and make it into a totally empty unformatted drive.

SELECT DISK 0
CLEAN

Now reboot from the USB and try the install again. Select the Custom Install option and you should now be able to install in the unallocated space.

NavyLCDR · 11 May 2018

Once you boot from the Windows 10 installation USB flash drive and get to the first screen, all you have to do is press shift + F10 to get a command prompt. Then you can run:

diskpart
select disk 0
clean
exit
exit

and continue with the installation from there.