windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation Windows 10

windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation Windows 10
This is a real easy fix so you can install Windows without any error during the installation process. The easy way is to unplug any drives that your not installing windows onto and then try to install again, you will need to drive any partitions that you create during that installation process and the install should work this time.
This works on Windows 10, Windows 8 / 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2012.
Join our forum
www.briteccomputers.co.uk/forum

[@Semscure]

After literally 10+ hours of troubleshooting, this fixed it. Thank you so much

[@kaua_drar]

You posted that 6 years ago, but it still helps me, I love you.

[@brianchambers5828]

Thank you so much ... I spent many, many hours on this ... removed all other drives etc. and just left the drive that I wanted to install a clean copy of win10 on, however the one thing I didn't do, was to delete the one remaining partition on that drive !! until I watched your tutorial .... "worked a treat" thanks again.

[@Huntcho]

Just watched your video about using diskpart because windows wanted me to change the partition to GPT, then I had this issue and came upon your video again 😅 video is still helping in 2023.

[@mtonkinson6]

Unplug the other drives helped me massively (ie, it works now)! I teach computer science for a living and just upgraded the board on my others half computer and was faced with this, not in 20 years of messing with computers has this ever come up lol. Nice one man :)

[@fixitdaz]

Its good to see windows is consistent from version to version. Great Video Bri.

[@Britec09]

lol cheers Daz. Not had time to post that parcel but i will, sorry mate been ultra busy.

[@fixitdaz]

No worries Bri, not enough hours in the day, Let me know if you need anything to cover the cost, if not I sort a donation out for your most Excellent Channel.

[@endrico221]

lmao

[@hithere8334]

My lord, it was so late last night as I was trying to get through the install and was wondering if this was the issue. Watching your vid after work today made me finally get off my lazy ass and unplug my other three drives - install worked on the first attempt. Thank you, good sir.

[@hithere8334]

@John Maxtone Open up the side panel of your PC and locate your other drives and unplug them. I also deleted all other partitions on the drive before continuing with the install.

[@mwenn8136]

Why does this video have so many downvotes? This video was on target, to the point and still valid in 2021.

[@coslub1]

Me I just disabled the HDD from bios. Thank you. It worked

[@MaheshMV666]

Man, I can't express how it helped me. Thanks. 🔥 🔥 🔥

[@alfredawn7939]

how to do that

[@alfredawn7939]

and how to re enable it

[@jatinkhatri7512]

@@MaheshMV666 How did you disable it?

[@jsmoothatp]

Please answer how you did it you can't leave us hanging

[@younessbarouri2318]

Worked ! I opened the bottom of the laptop , removed the ssd, Pressed and hold the power button for few second ( just to kinda reset the internal ) , then pluged the ssd back . WORKED !

[@Gilbeezyskit]

Finally fixed this. Thanks for the guide from the past. Can’t believe this is an issue in Windows..

[@amimulahsan2210]

In 2022, it still working. Thanks brother, you deserve a subs

[@BluePhoenix001]

You are totally right, there is no way this should be happening in 2018. Especially with such an unclear error message. This video helped me sort it out, thank you!

[@trapOrdoom]

Fucking hate Microsoft.

[@ReggieMisFit]

this happening 4 years after too

[@arveen1362]

@@ReggieMisFit Owh man , I’m gonna do this now . I’ve got 4 m.2 drive 😂

[@ReggieMisFit]

@@arveen1362 good luck. be sure to unplug data power cable from unnecessary drives

[@adrianhallich6101]

2024 chiming in…

[@theigpugamer]

"And you would think this would not happen in 2017 anymore" Me with same issue is 2021 you don't say

[@wcorp1044]

Me too

[@guddi1491]

Did this work for you?

[@theigpugamer]

@@guddi1491 yes it did I removed all my hard drives and changed the nvme from slot 1 to slot 2 It worked

[@BlitzIn4]

right. yea, nah. im not altering my hardware for windows. whql f’d us over by limiting the devices we can use. ms is #2 richest company or some shit. i installed ubuntu, no problems!!

[@leswhitehouse]

I had a similar problem a few years ago trying to install Win XP on a 2nd drive in a Vista pc. Despite carefully selecting the correct drive XP stuffed the boot process of my Vista drive. It took all day to repair the MBR and get it to boot! Sound advice - unplug all other drives! Thanks Brian.

[@Britec09]

Yeah that is the best way to install windows, unplug all other drives.

[@stefanhoffmann8417]

READ if the video did NOT HELP you: I used 3 different USB flash drives with 2 different versions of windows 10 Pro 64-bit and used 1 method as installing the older Win10 as Windows 8 installer from ISO. And on the 2 other drives I used the latest Windows 10 installation version available using the Windows 10 USB installer. I had 2 different problems. One drive said I needed drivers before I could proceed with installation. The other one was the same as in this video. The problem you are having if the method in the video is not working for you, is that you have multiple partitions on your flash drive. For example, I had Memtest86 installed on the drive and formating the drive did not get rid of the extra partitions. I am currently trying to get this stick back to factory defaults. The other problem I had with older windows 10 installer was using a USB 2.0 flash drive in a USB 3.0 port on the rear of the motherboard. Switching the flash drive from the USB 3.0 rear panel port to a USB 2.0 front panel port finally let me through with the installation. It didn't even copy the files in the USB 3.0 port when telling me there's an error with missing drivers.

[@eleandro]

You just saved my day! Thank you!

[@meczowa]

I resolved this issue by changing USB boot partition from GPT to MBR. On GPT it was throwing this error every time. I tried to fix using diskpart but no luck so might be worth verifying what is the format on your bootable USB

[@rsdntevl]

Unplug the drive? I only have an SSD and my USB stick

[@zenabziya05484782038]

Is like my tab is the sem I can't remove ssd

[@cyrusm8393]

I was trying to reinstall Windows 10 on my gaming PC after using Windows 11 for almost a year now and got tired of it. I ended up with problems trying to select the drive I want to install and the installation getting canceled. I've tried fixing it through command prompt but to no avail, until I came across this video. I have 4 different drives plugged into my PC, so I unplugged all of the drives expect the one where I wanted to put Windows on, and it worked! Very aggravating as it took me the whole day, but your video definitely helped me out. Thanks so much!

[@ashazali2336]

Hello guys! Following worked for me 1. I setup bios to default (Most probably it doesn't have any effect but that's what I did) 2. I didn't make any partitions. Just go with the whole disk. You can always create volumes latter when windows is up and running. Good Luck.

[@theendryu]

I have 4 ssd in total... had this issue until I unplugged other 3 drives for the installation so it solved my issue. Also nice to know you could use 'load drivers' to check contents of other drives. Helpful.

[@cherloire7978]

unplugging my other ssd drives also solved this issue, nice software microsoft lol

[@soldier.wreckedforoverpressure]

Windows sucks as usual 😂

[@chazsewell]

I have 3 nvme drives, 🤬 this is a total pain. Had to remove a ridiculous amount of stuff since they are under metal plates. You'd think they'd fix this but now it's been an issue for such a long time.

[@RifatErdemSahin]

Similar case

[@michaelredd4051]

Thanks Brian. Used to do that all the time (unplug all hard drives except the ssd). Good reminder to continue to do that. Simple, easy. thanks, M

[@RicardoDirani]

Gosh I can't believe that was it. I often unplug the other drives so Windows don't mess up, but this time I wanted it to recognize the other installations and set up the windows boot loader. It is a new SSD, so I was thinking it was either broken or incompatible with my old motherboard. But now it's installing and I'm feeling silly for wasting hours and hours trying to make it install. Thanks man.

[@pqowi9098]

I tried this and also changed the installation USB and now all is working. Thank you for all your help !!!

[@Sunnyfernandes747]

Worked on my laptop. Was trying to install new ssd in secondary slot and wanted a complete new windows on it, got the same error after the installation. As instructed by this good man took out the HDD which was in slot one and tried to install windows once more and It worked.

[@toomanyfacez]

2023 on windows 11 and this still isnt fixed but thankfully this tutorial helped thank you

[@bunkerhillstudios3382]

You saved the day again. I messed up my Windows installs after hackintoshing, and your method didn't exactly work for me.. but it led me to using macOs disk utility to restore the windows USB to the drive, booted and viola! install off the drive itself. Thanks so much.

[@cahndeso2488]

can i follow your tutorial?? because I went through the same thing. can you please explain the steps?

[@_eternalabyss_]

Worked for me after multiple hours of troubleshooting my usb stick, iso files, installation of rufus, and everything else. Thanks

[@EmmanuelAndriulo]

Man this video just saved my life! I've been working on a PC since 5PM when I got this error. Tried everything I could to solve but nothing, not a 2:31AM, thanks to this video, I finally booted my Windows. You're a savior!

[@royk8721]

i started the windows 10 install at 5 also, its 12:30am right now, hopefully i can beat your time

[@vishrutgoyani8071]

Wow... Disabling hard drive from bios worked perfectly for me as you suggested (disconnecting other drives). Simple issue but it can be horrifying for those who don't know this. Thanks for your great video! Just clicked the red button instantly!🔥

[@syronbman9520]

That didn’t work for me however I found another way first I would like to explain the situation I was in when doing this as idk what factors apply to getting it to work my way. 1. I had made a Windows 10 booted on my 16 gb usb. 2. When starting my laptop with it in it gave me the option to run the 64bit windows. 3 . When the new window came up asking me to choose which driver to use what you want to do is pick the the one labelled OS at the end and then format it after that select it again and then go through the process it should work

[@joshyyosh]

I am so glad I found your video! I have been trying to figure this out for days!!! Thank you so much!

[@RobertKeenanComp-U-Right]

Hello Brian, Good to see your "Human" and not A.I. for Tech! I just had a Bugger of a time getting "Grub" off old HD while trying to test Hackentosh OS. Even after running "fixboot"

[@Britec09]

Well I knew that error would possibly happen, just role playing for the video lol I need to do a Hackentosh OS at some point.

[@pigeoned]

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH i didn’t wanna open my computer so basically what i did was delete all the partitions of my other drive so that my main drive was the only one windows could see! if you don’t mind losing your data then this is another good method

[@yogeshbhange]

After trying every method for 2 days just "unplug hard drive" worked for me cant believe. Thanks man ❤

[@gauravbansal6260]

Really your solution is helpful for me, I spent lost of time on this issue. After seen your video it working. Thanks Man.

[@jdsgotninelives]

This problem takes me back to the days of XP!! I used to have to run fdisk occasionally too lol!! Great video Brian :)

[@Nate-qc8kb]

I'm still fighting this one. I only have the NVME drive (where I want to install windows to) and the USB Install drive and no other drives or storage devices plugged in. Weirdly, it seems by the comments that it works for some people and not for others. I'm not sure what else to try...

[@123cnt]

did you figure it out mate, i have the exact issue with my NVME m.2 drive in my laptop, i have no other drives yet it still gives this message

[@admatronfh7455]

Any luck?

[@123cnt]

@@admatronfh7455 yeah I sorted it

[@nishaanthsalian256]

@@123cnt can u pls let us know how u managed to sort it. I have the same issue. Thanks in Advance.

[@imamrizkyr2018]

Same man

[@goodvibesonly6161]

I can't believe a simple "unplug all the hard drives" solved this issue, even with windows 11 too. Thanks man ❤️

[@Justifiers]

Me: looking at my M.2 storage slot buried underneath a dark rock pro 4 and a modern 3 slot GPU.... "Sheeeet"

[@AfuaBoat]

How do you unplug the hard drives?

[@RifatErdemSahin]

@@Justifierssimilar case mate

[@Justifiers]

@@RifatErdemSahin 🥲

[@estey1354]

Problem solved, thank you! Even in 2024!

[@alexnavarro1944]

This was the EXACT same situation for me, your solution worked perfect. Thank you so much for posting this video!

[@Teletha]

same issue in 2023. but now we have NVME drives that are under all the hardware, no simple unplug the cable anymore...

[@Ardianto1000]

After 4 hours, I meet your tutorial vidoes, finnaly i can troubleshoot for my friend device, txs a lot bro

[@anonymousaparichit4649]

This works! What a great expert you are thanks for solving the problem thanks man

[@littlejerry4957]

Thanks worked perfectly. Had another drive with another OS that seems to be triggering the issue.

[@VikingVertigo]

It' s 2020 and this is still a thing :D I think it is probably because Windows creates all the System and Recovery partitions only if they don't already exist. If they exist on the old drive then the installation does not create them on the new one and it just does not understand how to continue. Removing the old system partitions should probably also fix this issue, but if you do not want to delete anything then you just have to pull out the old drive or disable it :D

[@bminney]

You sir are a legend. I have several drives connected and by unplugging them all bar one it worked. I'd spent hours trying to figure this out and failed. Many thanks.

[@ridwanrigo]

Many thanks....this solved my problem. Been through youtube, none of them worked 🤦‍♂️. You really save me 😊👍👍

[@hugh19882]

And what if there are no other drives plugged in?

[@cryo191]

Saved my arse! I’m one of those people with 5 drives in my system now, 3 SSDs and 2 HDDs, fresh installing windows to an NVMe drive, lucky for me it was easy to unplug all my data cables and leave in the two m.2 ones. Thank you!

[@phandeazy]

Alex Ventress same exact scenario as me! Too many drives and installing windows on a fresh nvme. Was stuck for hours and found this video. Thank god

[@thegladiatorspartan961]

Mine doesn’t do that. As soon as I press ok it just remains on the installation was canceled page. 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@Andrew-sb6fh]

I have the same issue, did you find a fix?

[@igniteddesigns]

This just happened to me when installing windows 11! Surely by now, the wind install should know which drive to label C drive, lol Thanks for the tip, much appreciated

[@danieln.1034]

Had to remove 2 nVME to get it to work. This shouldn’t be happening with Windows 11 in 2023 for god’s sake. But thank you sir.

[@mananpatel1464]

How to unplug power

[@Khercules]

I hope it's not too early to call Victory, but I think it's working!!! Thanks, mate!!

[@woodzee5360]

I spent all day troubleshooting my pc. A stupid corsair driver caused a blue screen loop, so I tried to repair windows and it got stuck at 67%.... turned out I could delete the driver in the COMMAND PROMPT from troubleshooting screen. Then I had to deal with this issue. Formatted my ssd before I found this video... :( Regardless, thank you so much!!! Screw windows.............

[@illprincess95]

You might need to format your drive too tbh! That’s what worked for me!

[@ImCalvinr93]

Windows sucks. Microsoft are the kings of recycling the same operating system only slightly tweaking them to look pretty and marketing them as new. Windows 11 still feels like windows 7 (outdated). Thanks Britec for making this tutorial video.

[@AndyLacez01]

To think that in 2020 I''m facing this error. Bro this worked for me. THANKS FOR SHARING!

[@Q2FwaXRhbGlzbSBiYWQu]

Thank you, it worked for me on Windows 8.1. Also, it looks like in Windows 11 they finally fixed it.

[@massimocorvaglia6164]

assolutamente no, è più di un'anno che non riesco più a fare un'installazione pulita di win 11, ho continuato a lavorare con cloni di C: ora provo immediatamente a seguire i consigli del video e vediamo, nel frattempo siamo arrivati a giugno 2024

[@weinosby]

This is old video, but it gave me an idea 😊. What i did is just delete all the drives and it worked like a charm

[@jsmoothatp]

On my drives it says I have Drive 0 partition 1 Drive 0 partition 2 Drive 0 partition 3 (the one I want to install windows on) Drive 1 partition 1: recovery Drive 1 partition 2 Drive 1 partition 3 Drive1 partition 4: old drive Drive 1 partition 5. All I have plugged in is a 1 ssd why is there so much drives showing some of them have like 99mb space only

[@noname_being]

Thank you very much!!! I lost so many hours trying to solve this, in Portuguese i couldn't fint nothing. You helped me a lot!

[@smeagol4641]

Glad thanks to this video fixed my problem

[@resrchbeats4544]

Thank you and subbed from 2021

[@Pr1sma84]

NOT WORKS FOR ALL..I TRY 6 TIMES AND NOT WORKS ,STILL SAME ISSUE AFTER ALL SSD ,M.2 DISCC.

[@PghFlip]

This alone did not solve my problem on a Lenovo ThinkCentre install. I ended up having to change the boot mode from UEFI to Legacy. Hope that helps someone else.

[@JohannSuarez]

Thanks for leaving this comment. Did the same thing and it finally worked!

[@PghFlip]

@@JohannSuarez fantastic! We are all better together!

[@MegaMindRocks]

Any suggestion on "Windows could not prepare the partition selected for installation"?

[@DaisukethestarX]

Im installing windows on a single HDD and I get this error. Can't unplug it so what can I do?

[@ahmedshimi4401]

Great video. ... 🤝👍👍👍.. I had this problem 3 times before with three different machines and I fix it by instaling windows in unlocated space as you did, actually win 10 with its problem remember me with the problem with win 98 and win me.

[@ITpanda]

I'm getting this error but only have the one hard disk. Installing windows 10 on a formated drive. Drive letters show okay in diskpart.

[@marcoscabero]

it works! Thank you from Argentina

[@kayngo87]

Hero thank you, needed to do this when installing a new stick of SSD. Kept thinking my SSD for games was c drive lol

[@XoCaliburn]

2021 and this is still happening :) Wtf is Billy G up to?

[@sealer9958]

unplugged all my drives and I am still getting the same message. ugh. been at this for HOURS

[@stuartyeadon]

If you still get this with all drives unplugged, make sure your USB installer doesn't have an EFI partition. I created mine via macOS as I didn't have a second windows system to use. macOS created a blank 200MB EFI partition on the USB. Looking at the installer logs this bug relates to when the installer attempts to build BCD boot records but gets confused which EFI partition to use, thus affecting "the next phase" of the installation. GUID drives are pretty standard now so this is fairly shocking to see in 2022. If you created your installer in macOS like me "diskutil eraseVolume free free disk#s#" did the trick where #=disk number and EFI partition number (likely 1) obtained via "diskutil list" On Windows pressing Shift+F10 and typing "diskpart" I believe using "list disk", "select disk #", "list partition", "select partition #", "delete partition" on any unused EFI partitions aught to work. (Again replacing # for your case scenario) Then reboot and try again. Make sure you know how to use the above commands as they're very destructive!! ✌🏻

[@americandadgeek9867]

i only have one drive connected i cant delete the volumes or format the disk i have soooo much important data on my drive what should i do

[@Markinpuff]

It’s common practice not to install windows with multiple drives installed. For may reasons, which include possible SATA driver installation before windows can see your particular drive. You didn’t say what type of drives you’re using, SSD/m.2 drives these will always become first or drive 0, unless you have a fairly new motherboard with the proper settings enabled to avoid this , it recommend actually . Also you didn’t specify if you’re using uefi boot mode. Which comes with its own list of do’s and don’t. Also you didn’t specify the size of your drive which also changes your choices. In short, it’s always best to install windows with the minimalist of devices installed to avoid complications. Never ever give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt.. New windows hardware needed. ------------------- Boot drive Optical drive, if needed Video card (if discrete) even if you have an onboard video card it’s best to include your card during windows install.. Replace drivers later. All memory modules you plan on using. Keyboard - Hard wired Mouse - hard wired That’s it, anything more and your asking for trouble.. Remember the KISS principle....

[@Britec09]

Calling people stupid is not the right way to put it. This is just a example what people will do when installing Windows with more than one drive on the system can run into this kind of problem. Yes you should install Windows with minimum hardware plugged in ie hard drives, but that don't help beginners that do this type of stuff and are looking for a solution. This is just a video showing them people a work around the issue.

[@Markinpuff]

Britec09 I was not intentionally calling anyone stupid, just my view on the subject.. That phase is an educational reference not meant to mock anyone indeed.

[@Britec09]

Its all good

[@awesomestuff2496]

Hey man, is there any work around for me since I got a laptop and i can't disconnect my other hard drive?

[@katakuri7297]

you saved me from a lot of stress thank you sir

[@pranjalsingh7683]

I have an inbuilt hdd in my laptop. How to fix it in my case?

[@brianscallions433]

Dude thank you! I have been pulling my hair out all day trying to figure this out. I ain't got much hair left as it is so thank you good sir.

[@DonJoSan]

Unfortunately when I take off the ext Hard Drive that has windows boot in it it won’t let me delete nor partition nor click new on the internal Hard Drive to then install windows.

[@jamesmiller3816]

Good day mate. Would you consider doing a tutorial on how to merge, or combine Cdrive with Ddrive in windows 10 using mini partition, aeomi , and easeus. I am one of several, namely seniors,who are relatively new to the tech game, who would like to know. I appreciate yourChannel.

[@Britec09]

I sure can James, please post the request on my forum so I don't forget

[@wyattdonley2298]

had this issue but the install would immediately come up with that error. this worked perfectly

[@philipkusiima]

Brooooooooo this worked I tried everything and I mean everything but a simple removal of an external HDD worked. You should see my search history. I have even memorized cmd code for this issue. This shouldn’t be an issue with windows 10. But thanks 🙏

[@tirthajrikame1052]

This video saved me so much time!!!!!! Thank you so much, much appreciated!

[@akmartinez1]

This won’t work if you have any m.2/nvme ssd’s installed into the motherboard. It’s not easy/convenient to open everything up, remove the video card and other covers to get to the m.2/nvme drives...

[@thegeekgarage]

Getting this message on a Microsoft Studio 1... any suggestions since the drive isn't accessible?

[@andersbeth6786]

Do you mean just remove the external drive from power supply or actually unplug the drive from the computer itself

[@PsychoJatt]

I have only one drive and the issue still exists what can I do

[@ilikemusic2726]

How do I get around this if my ssds are plugged in through my motherboard? I tried taking one of the out but then my pc won't post at all

[@Steelmack]

Worked as a charm!

[@vipulupadhye5626]

I am installing windows 7 using USB bootable but First side of setup complete it restarts but second time it won't instal windows 7..how to fix it

[@oazywtf]

W fix I took my second ssd out and the install of windows worked fine thx a lot

[@rooost9856]

Help, icant delete the the partition to make unallocated space

[@lovevibes6135]

Installing lower version will fix this problem ( like windows 8 or 8.1 )

[@VelocityVFX]

Thank you this helped me greatly, after two days of pulling me hair out i came across your channel, i cant believe that an extra ssd is all the issue was. Typical Microsoft i guess!

[@reydavid7300]

How do I disconnect hard drives if i only have one ssd?

[@jettangeles2707]

But what if I only have one drive?