Installing windows onto an entirely wiped Asus K55A laptop

[domino2013]

I was recently given an Asus K55A laptop running windows 10. I was told to wipe it and do whatever I wanted with it. So, I used the restore function within windows 10, allowing it to delete files. I did this and it began a very slow reinstallation process where it froze for about 4 hours at 36% and 96%, when it froze, seemingly for good (12+ hours) at 99%. I called my father thinking he might have some input. He told me to shut it down, which I was hesitant to do, but so we did. He told me he’d take it for the weekend and fix it for me, so I gave it to him. Long story short, I now appear to have no OS and boot directly into BIOS. I have a flash drive with windows 7, but that doesn’t seem to work. I enabled CMS(?) and got some response from the drive and an error code. When using a flash drive with windows 10 on it, things appear normal except it couldn’t install due to MBR formatting? Per another bit of advice, I used diskpart to convert from MBR to GPT and I have certainly made it worse. Oh, to top all this off, I’ve been told that this laptop was never intended to support windows 10 and never should have been upgraded in the first place, so there’s that too. I don’t even know where to begin with this problem. I’m not even sure what was done to the laptop prior to my taking it back. I took it back because it was starting to sound like my dad was in over his head and now I’m in the same boat. All I want to do is set it up to dual boot with Linux mint and either windows 10 or 7. Any advice on what to do would be much appreciated.

 

[USAFRet]

Create a new Win 10 install USB or DVD.
Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Boot from that, and install Win 10
How to do a CLEAN installation of Windows 10

 

[domino2013]

@USAFRet
I have a functioning Win10 USB. I get error code 0xc0000001

 

[USAFRet]

@USAFRet
I have a functioning Win10 USB. I get error code 0xc0000001

That could be a number of things.
From MS:
"In this case, the error code: 0xc0000001 indicates that there might be some issues with the booting device or some booting files are corrupted. It might also happen if some problem happens with the boot sector of the computer. "

How did you create this Win 10 USB?
Does it work on other systems?

 

[dudeman509]

Sounds like the hard drive crapped out.

What kind of drive is in it? Some mfr's have bootable utilities you can run to test the health.

 

[domino2013]

Via Microsoft’s site. It’s what I’ve used to install on other machines
I’m fairly certain it’s that I’ve inadvertently deleted the SAM file or some other such issue. I was getting the error code relating to the one disk being MBR formatted initially, which I believe was error 0xc000000d? It was my own folly that I cleaned and reformatted to GPT. I seem to have really screwed the pooch in doing that, as that’s when the current major problems presented

 

[USAFRet]

Via Microsoft’s site. It’s what I’ve used to install on other machines
I’m fairly certain it’s that I’ve inadvertently deleted the SAM file or some other such issue. I was getting the error code relating to the one disk being MBR formatted initially, which I believe was error 0xc000000d? It was my own folly that I cleaned and reformatted to GPT. I seem to have really screwed the pooch in doing that, as that’s when the current major problems presented

Booting from that USB should allow you to reformat the drive in whatever situation is necessary, and proceed on.

 

[domino2013]

Yes it should, but it does not. Instead I’m presented with a blue screen that says “your pc/ device needs to be repaired
A required device isn’t connected or can’t be accessed.

Error code 0xc0000001

You’ll need to use recovery tools. If you don’t have any installation media (like a disc or USB device) contact your pc administrator or pc/device manufacturer

As I said previously, this error code wasn’t present until I screwed up reformatting the drive

 

[USAFRet]

At what exact point during the install process does this error appear?

 

[domino2013]

Immediately upon booting from the flash drive. Prior to my flub, I was able to access the various troubleshooting resources on the installer, but now even that won’t work

 

[USAFRet]

Immediately upon booting from the flash drive. Prior to my flub, I was able to access the various troubleshooting resources on the installer, but now even that won’t work

Then that speaks to either a faulty USB or its creation, or an actual hardware fault in the Asus laptop. RAM or something.

So, troubleshoot.
Take Windows out of the equation.

Create a Linux Live USB. LinuxMint or Ubuntu.
Try booting from that, and see what happens.
Run the memtest that might be included with that.

 

[domino2013]

I already did that, naturally it works. It’s not the USB ports or related drivers. The usb drive of windows worked until I cleared the drive. The issue is that the drive has lost its formatting, which I somehow need to restore without being able to actually work from the windows is or windows installer. I figured part of it out on Linux, will continue