Clean Windows 10 Install is failing to create MSR and Reserve partitions

[LTM123]

Hi there,

I've recently purchased a new SSHD for my laptop to replace the default hard drive, as the drive that came with the laptop was no longer able to boot into windows and was failing the basic systems diagnostics test (it was also unable to clean install windows due to a potential imminent hard drive failure). 

With the new SSHD in place, I began to clean install windows from a bootable USB (3.0 port) and successfully loaded up to the windows installer. As this is a completely new drive (1TB), no partitions existed on it when I went to custom install, so on the 'where do you want to install windows?' screen with the 930GB~ unallocated space selected, I pressed 'Next'. I know that Windows automatically creates reserve, MSR and primary partitions before installing windows and it did so on my first attempt. However, after leaving the installation to run for over 3 hours, it still remained at the first stage of the install at 0% (copying windows files (0%) or something along those lines). I knew that the combination of my SSHD with the USB 3.0 port couldn't possibly take this long after looking up standard install times, which gauged my setup at around 15-30 minutes. Therefore I restarted the computer and tried numerous different methods of fixing the issue.

This is where my current issue comes in. I am no longer able to get past the "where do you want to install windows?" screen with the partitions list, as Windows is unable to create the MSR or Reserve partitions. When I get to the screen, my choices are either to press next to install windows on the unallocated space, or press New>Apply to make Windows create 4 partitions before I click next to install. If I press next without forcing windows to create the partitions, the install freezes (I am still able to move my mouse and bring up command prompt, but the loading bar running across the bottom of the screen is stuck and the setup window is unclickable except for the close button.) If I press New>Apply, the loading bar does not freeze but the process definitely appears to not be working as nothings happens after even an hour. During my first install where the partitions actually loaded, the partitions took a matter of 2 minutes to be created, so I know it is not on the part of hardware slowness. 

Here's where it gets interesting though, because whenever so many hours have passed and I decide to restart my computer, there is always a primary partition of 529MB created on top of the rest of the unallocated space. If I restart while this partition exists, it actually creates another primary partition of 529MB. Therefore for whatever reason, it seems to have no trouble creating primary partitions, as it creates a new one with each attempt of pressing New>Apply or Next if I do not manually delete it.

Here are some of the solutions I have tried that I can remember:

• Deleting all partitions and creating a New one to install windows on
• Manually creating partitions through command prompt (it gets stuck at 0% when I format the volume to NTFS)
• bootrec /fixmbr + /fixboot + /rebuildbcd (mbr runs successfully, while the others return 'Access is denied'
• Cleaning the drive through command prompt (cleaning returns an I/O error)
• chkdsk /f /r /x (returns that it is write protected, when in actuality the drive is NOT in read only mode)

Spec Info:

• HP Pavillion Power 15 cb061na
• Seagate FireCuda 1TB SSHD 2.5inch 5400rpm
• 8GB portable USB stick used on a USB 3.0 port (formatted with FAT32, then added clean win 10 install)

I haven't seen my specific kind of problem anywhere else hence I'm posting this here to hopefully gain some insight into what might be the problem, I appreciate anyone who wants to try give me a hand, it's pretty frustrating to have a completely new hard drive fail on me like this. Edit: I'll reply as soon as I can, I'm working a lot this week so apologies if I don't get back promptly.

[Grzwacz]

Greetings,

Welcome to the forum.

I am not a HP employee.

The new SSD should be raw, which it is (930 GB of unallocated space).

Maybe new SSD is bad.

Have you tried disabling Secure boot and enabling Legacy support in the BIOS (Link)? I have never had to do this when installing a new HDD or SSD.

Recreate 64 bit Windows 10 installation media. Maybe the device or the "bits" on the USB flash drive are messed up?

Regards

[LTM123]

Thanks for your reply,

I have tried Secure boot and Legacy mode enabled from the BIOS, as well as prioritising the USB in the boot order, all of them seem to have no effect on the issue, they all load up the installer perfectly, I don't even need to boot into safe mode for it to recognise the windows installation media. If the drive is bad then it's not the end of the world as i can still get a refund on it, I'm just so curious as to how the brand new drive doesnt work, big coincidence considering my previous one failed. I will clean install once again with a newly formatted usb and get back to you in this.

Oh and just out of curiosity, I don't think I understand the hard drive formatting process fully. Do newly installed hard drives get formatted to NTFS when windows gets installed (being raw prior to this) or is it genuinely just raw until a manual format is made?

Thanks again 🙂

[Grzwacz]

Hi LMT123,

You're very welcome.

Back in the old days you had to partition and format the disk (FDISK) before installing Windows.

Windows setup now does this stuff on the fly when you do a custom install.

Regards

[LTM123]

Just a quick update.

I had clicked Next one last time after posting this thread and left my laptop on charge to run whilst I was at work and after about 10 hours I came back to an error:

"We couldn't install Windows in the location you chose. Please check your media drive. Here's more info about what happened: 0x80070057." 

Much better than no info at all, so hooray! Next was available to click again so I clicked that again but it said the partition was too small (despite the 1tb unallocated being the only thing there), so I hit the refresh button and what do you know, the recovery and system partitions appear miraculously! i then clicked on the unallocated space and then Next to install windows, and it has successfully taken me to the installing windows screen once again, hooray! 

As for forum etiquette, shall I mark this thread as resolved since the specific issue I had is technically solved, or shall I best leave it open in case anything crops up again? I am currently sitting at 'Copying Windows files (0%)' again and don't know whether I might run into more errors, though if it's best to create new threads for new problems I can go with that.

Thanks again for your time 🙂

[Grzwacz]

Hi LTM123,

You're very welcome.

See how things go. Hopefully Windows will install correctly now.

That is strange to see partitions appear. It seems like Windows setup was trying to install on one of the smaller partitions instead of the unallocated space.

I have never seen this before when doing a custom install on a new disk or a disk with partitions. I delete all partitions on a used disk and start with raw, unallocated space.

Regards

[Hibb1]

Hey Mate,

Honestly, it shouldn't be that difficult and kudos to you for putting that much effort in without throwing the laptop ha.

I know the HDD is new, but have you or can you run F2 diags on it?

I've done what you're doing hundreds of times on hundreds of machines, and never had issues like that. I would strongly suspect a HW fault. You could also try updating the BIOS to F.18 *in case* there's some weird compatibility issue with SSHD as opposed to SSD or HDD.

[LTM123]

I have considered throwing it across my room many times 😉

I ran the quick checks and it passed the Smart check as well as the short DST, haven't done extensive check yet as it projected it would take two days :'D

So I let the install run overnight with a fresh windows 10 install but it returned the same error code as posted above. Something about not being able to format the partition on drive 0? Cant quite remember and forgot to take a picture of it unfortunately as I had just woken up and clicked off of it. I tried manually formatting the unallocated space (whilst the 4 partitions where there) on the windows 10 install window but it took over an hour with no progress. 

I've currently deleted all the partitions and just tried again with just all unallocated space and left it running whilst I'm out the house. My thought process is if it doesnt work today, I'll run an extensive hard drive check and if that comes back clean then I might investigate other components of the laptop.

Thanks for your time 🙂

[LTM123]

After another 10 hours or so of leaving it be, it came back with the exact same error code. I ran an extensive hard drive check which came back clear, it also told me my BIOS is 1.18.0.0 so I assume that's the F.18 BIOS you mentioned. I started looking at the physical connection between the hard-drive and the motherboard; it's a fairly small ribbon cable but I noticed the tiny metal pins that go onto the motherboard are very slightly bent, they don't stick out at all but they go to the right by like 10 degrees or so, I'm thinking it might be the issue here and not the drive?

Just for extra info I ran diskpart before the hard drive test and I'll post my results here, just in case there's anything I can't see that someone else can in these lists.

-

Disk 0   Online   Size: 931GB      0B Free   DYN   GPT *   (1TB SSHD) 

Disk 1   Online   Size: 7980Mb   0B Free   DYN   GPT      (8GB USB)

-

                            Label                           Fs                       Size         Status (all healthy)

Volume 0   C                           RAW      Partition           529MB

Volume 1                                RAW      Partition           930GB

Volume 2   E                          FAT32    Partition           100MB                                            Hidden

Volume 3   D   ESD-USB     FAT32    Removable      7679MB

-

                                               Size         Offset

Partition 1   Recovery    529MB       1024KB

Partition 2   System       100MB       530MB

Partition 3   Reserved    16MB         630MB

Partition 4   Primary      930GB        646MB

-

Thanks

[Hibb1]

Yep. I agree with hardware issue. There's no reason software wise why it wouldn't install. Check all connections are in securely.

It's definitely an unusual issue.