Need help with a clean Windows 10 install

I just updated my post to be more specific as to where I'm having a problem. When it lists the partitions, I'm not able to delete any of them.

Try pressing Shift + F10 at the screen with all the partitions listed during the Windows setup to open a command prompt. Then run:

diskpart
list disk
select disk <disk number> - <disk number> is the number of the SSD provided by the previous command
clean - the clean command will erase the entire SSD
exit
exit

Then refresh the partition list. I doubt this will work, though, because it sounds like your SSD is getting locked somehow during the Windows install.

NavyLCDR said:

Try pressing Shift + F10 at the screen with all the partitions listed during the Windows setup to open a command prompt. Then run:

diskpart
list disk
select disk <disk number> - <disk number> is the number of the SSD provided by the previous command
clean - the clean command will erase the entire SSD
exit
exit

Then refresh the partition list. I doubt this will work, though, because it sounds like your SSD is getting locked somehow during the Windows install.

It worked! You are awesome! Thank you very much! I've been trying to figure this out since yesterday. Now, if I can just figure out how to install Windows 10 as a "true" admin allowing me to access everything without having all of these messed up permissions and only me as a single user, then I'll be in business. I think I should probably keep a local profile instead of linking my Microsoft account, but I don't want to lose any functionality, like streaming from my Xbox which is linked to my Microsoft account via Xbox Live.

I have a 256GB SSD that I want to keep the Windows 10 on, a 500GB SSD to install my applications on, and 2 x 1TB SSDs setup in RAID0 to relocate My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos, and My Music, etc to. I had no problem running things this way when using Windows 7, but in Windows 10, over time the permissions start getting messed up. I'm not sure if I should relocate all of my data directories individually or just relocate the entire user directory to the 1TB SSDs. For some reason this might be too complicated for Windows 10 to do because what ends up happening is somehow a lose access to some of the data on my boot drive, like left over files after uninstalling something, and the only way I could regain access to it is to change the permissions and give myself ownership of these directories. This is when everything starts getting messed up.

Thanks a ton for the advice. Hopefully I won't have to do another clean install. Maybe I should set everything up to create a restore point every hour. 😀

I would not disable UAC (user account control) nor enable the built-in administrator account. Microsoft has made UAC almost mandatory, access to several apps like Cortana and Edge will be disabled if UAC is also disabled, and it really is a good safety net to keep rogue programs from having administrator control with the only inconvenience to the user being have to click the yes button when asked if they want to do something at the administrator level. The built-in administrator account is also a good safety net in the event the user's normal administrator account gets corrupt and unable to log in. Many people on this forum have found themselves up the creek because they were using the built-in administrator account for daily use.

Nothing is preventing you from having both a local user account on the computer and a separate account linked to a Microsoft login.

As far as moving data files to the HDD - I like to use directory junctions. I must admit, I have not used this on the "library" folders like the Documents folder under your C:\Users\Username folder. I should try it. But I use it for my media center program, Kodi. The default path to the configuration and database files is C:\Users\Username\AppDate\Roaming\Kodi. I used a directory junction under each user account so the actual Kodi folder is under C:\Users\Public\Kodi and the link to that folder appears in the default location for each user.

The command prompt command is:
mklink /J <link> <target>