Question Lost password and Windows 10 reinstall

[mjw72652]

I have acquired a 6 year old all-in-one HP PC. The password is lost. I am trying to do a new install from a Windows 10 USB flash drive I have just purchased with a new license. I can boot into setup, but when I am asked which partition to install Windows 10 64-bit to, I show three partitions, a reserved partition, a system partition, and a primary partition. I get a message telling me that Windows cannot be installed to any of the partitions because the disc has an MBR partition table, and that I must have a GPT partition table to be able to install Windows.If I try to reformat the disk, nothing changes. How do I get around this and do a fresh Windows install? The BIOS has been reverted to system defaults.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I get a message telling me that Windows cannot be installed to any of the partitions because the disc has an MBR partition table, and that I must have a GPT partition table to be able to install Windows.

Clean drive before installing windows onto it.
Use diskpart clean method. This removes all data from the drive.
Press Shift+F10 to open command prompt, when booted from windows installation media.

 

[USAFRet]

The drive must be totally empty...all partitions.

Either diskpart clean (as above), or Delete the existing partitions during the OS install.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[mjw72652]

I reset the BIOS to factory defaults. Now when I boot from the flash drive it automatically goes directly to the recovery environment every time. It also does this if I try to boot from the hard drive. The recovery environment will let me get to the Dell recovery tool built into the machine, but that won't run- it gives me an error that the partitions have changed. Obviously I need to boot directly into setup on the flash drive, but I can't. The BIOS is set to legacy, without secure boot enabled. How can I stop booting into recovery so I can do what you suggest?

 

[mjw72652]

The drive must be totally empty...all partitions.

Either diskpart clean (as above), or Delete the existing partitions during the OS install.

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

I reset the BIOS to factory defaults. Now when I boot from the flash drive it automatically goes directly to the recovery environment every time. It also does this if I try to boot from the hard drive. The recovery environment will let me get to the Dell recovery tool built into the machine, but that won't run- it gives me an error that the partitions have changed. Obviously I need to boot directly into setup on the flash drive, but I can't. The BIOS is set to legacy, without secure boot enabled. How can I stop booting into recovery so I can do what you suggest?

 

[USAFRet]

I reset the BIOS to factory defaults. Now when I boot from the flash drive it automatically goes directly to the recovery environment every time. It also does this if I try to boot from the hard drive. The recovery environment will let me get to the Dell recovery tool built into the machine, but that won't run- it gives me an error that the partitions have changed. Obviously I need to boot directly into setup on the flash drive, but I can't. The BIOS is set to legacy, without secure boot enabled. How can I stop booting into recovery so I can do what you suggest?

It doesn't appear to be booting from the flash drive, or the flash drive is improperly constructed.

Where did you get it?

 

[mjw72652]

I GOT IT. Thanks to all- I had to go back into the BIOS and change legacy boot to UEFI. I was then able to get into the recovery environment advanced options, get to the command prompt, run diskpart, and now I have booted into setup on the flash drive and setup is running. Thank you so much to all of you and best wishes for the new year.