"We couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one."

boot - Installing Windows 10 after installing Ubuntu - Ask Ubuntu

I tried asking the question over at AskUbuntu, but a user said it would be better if I asked here instead.

Long story short: Windows 10 was preinstalled in my ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH71. I updated my drivers using Driver Booster & Intel's own software, afterwards I can't boot anymore so I impulsively clean installed Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.


Then, I figured I need Windows 10 again for some other stuff, so I am trying to install it again.


What I've done so far:

1. made two bootable flash drives, one with Win10 and one with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
2. used GParted from the Ubuntu image and resized my 250GB SSD so there would be at least 50GB for Windows 10 (unallocated space)
3. disabled fastboot & secure boot, enabled CSM, put my HDD (P2: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB...) on the top of the boot priority, then manually booted from my flash drive (UEFI: SanDisk Cruzer...)
4. the setup ran, it was normal until it asked me where to install Windows. I made a new partition and then afterwards the setup made 4 partitions. the drive is GPT by the way.
5. tried installing Windows on the 50GB partition I just made but it says "We couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files.".

I'm totally lost, everything I could find just wants me to clean the drive & make a new partition using diskpart, but I don't want to do that, there's already a lot of stuff in my Ubuntu installation


However, I can most probably backup my entire Ubuntu installation, format the whole drive & install Windows 10 first, then restore Ubuntu. I just don't know how to/where to start.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

dalchina said:

Hi, assuming the only space on your drive is one existing 50Gb partition, that won't work. Why? Because Windows - if it's an EFI installation- creates this:

- 4 partitions.

So best to install to unallocated space.

Please note that in that example, installed programs are not on C: (I manually install to D: ) and the paging file is on another drive. Thus you might want to allocate more space if you have user data and programs to consider.

Bear in mind that upgrading Windows - which is annual or bi-annual- effectively duplicates the Windows folder, deleted now after 10 days- more space.

Note I make no comment about dual booting.

Yes, I didn't format it with the GParted tool, I left it as unallocated space, but it displays the same error. I did try to format it as NTFS the attempt before that, and yes, it was unable to create more partitions because there is no more free space.

I honestly don't know how I can identify the problem because the error message is so generic. How do I access the setup log?

dalchina said:

Another problem may be that you haven't removed the previous Windows installation - perhaps there are left-over partitions. Use a 3rd party partition manager to delete any unwanted Win 10 partitions.

I'm pretty sure I wiped my whole SSD clean & formatted it when I installed Ubuntu, since I didn't want anything of the sort to happen. My other drive is the hard drive that came with the laptop, and I only use it for non-OS files.

If still in difficulty, please post a screenshot of the partitions on your disk.
(E.g. boot from Kyhi's boot disk at the top of the Software and Apps section, utility Minitools Partition Wizard).

Will do that tomorrow, thank you for the prompt responses! I really appreciate it. :)

Why did you enable CSM? Go back and disable it.

dalchina said:

You need to make sure this does not have any left-over Windows partitions on it.

I wiped the drive clean after replacing it with a SSD

NavyLCDR said:

Why did you enable CSM? Go back and disable it.

I disabled it to install graphics drivers for my Ubuntu installation, I guess it's not needed now. Will do that ASAP. Do I need to re-enable Secure Boot & Fast Boot in case?



Will Kyhi's boot disk show different results? I don't have another flash drive to use or a DVD Sorry

dalchina said:

So assuming that's your disk, supposedly with no Win 10 installed, you have an EFI partition present.

I'll have to assume the sda2 & sda3 partitions are to do with Linux.

(For comparison with what Minitool/Windows PM shows - see e.g. my #2 above).

My guess is you'd need to delete the EFI partition, then try reinstalling.

Will deleting the EFI partition break my Ubuntu installation? Sorry, I'm kinda new to all this, never really had problems with installation before :)

I was told that after installing Ubuntu, it would break GRUB and make my laptop boot to Windows straight, so I need to run this utility called boot-repair on a live CD. Maybe that will be able to fix the EFI partition being deleted?

50Gb's not a lot of space... but some run Win 10 on 32Gb on tablets.

I'm planning to use it for emergency purposes only though, like when I need something that's available in Windows only (Adobe products) or I'm trying to do something that takes a lot of effort in Linux and takes only 1 click in Windows, hahahaha. I hope it fits, my laptop can only take a 256GB SSD the most

Also, afterwards, since my Windows 10 Home license is connected to my Microsoft account, do I just log in and it automatically activates itself?