[SOLVED] "Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation" ?

[LVO]

Hi all! Some rookie mistakes in this thread, so please ignore those.

I'm essentially asking a follow-up question to this thread, as my circumstances and problems are the exact same, my setup is eerily similar (including motherboard) and my situation is too. I am also left with only a Macbook (Pro, 2021 M1).

It's a home build, built on the Tomahawk B450 mobo, a Ryzen 5 3600, 4x8GB of Corsair RAM.

So, in trying to get my system ready for Win 11 and it's requirements (TPM, UEFI, Secure Boot), I basically bricked my system. In essence, I thought I'd be okay doing what I did and I clearly did not.
Now, after hours of troubleshooting, all my disks are wiped (no problems, all backed up). No problem, you'd say, grab your laptop, make an install USB (Using a WD, 2TB SSD in my specific case). I've used the above-mentioned thread to create this file, and this is successful (non video tutorial here). I can boot into the Win11 setup, and I manage to get into the installation.

I'm getting stuck in the Win11 installation, however. After the 4rd step (installing updates) is complete, it is trying to complete the Windows installation. At this point, I keep getting the error mentioned in the title of my post, "Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of the installation".

I've searched for several hours and tried several things, such as solutions mentioned here and here (including setting all BIOS settings to defaults, and only changing what is needed to install Win11 (UEFI Boot and TPM). Furthermore, I've taken my 2 2TB HDD's both offline using diskpart in the Win 11 installation. All drives are correctly formatted for GPT, so should be UEFI-ready. I've also tried this, but cannot make the drives bootable (it errors out on /nt60, may have to do with the fact that I'm installing Win 11 and not Win 10).

In my machine, all external things are unplugged except for a bluetooth receiver (used for wireless mouse & keyboard).

Now, do any of you have ANY idea what is needed to resolve this? Of note: I will be going to bed soon and fix this tomorrow, so don't be offended if I don't respond immediately.

 

[Koekieezz]

Hi all! Some rookie mistakes in this thread, so please ignore those.

I'm essentially asking a follow-up question to this thread, as my circumstances and problems are the exact same, my setup is eerily similar (including motherboard) and my situation is too. I am also left with only a Macbook (Pro, 2021 M1).

It's a home build, built on the Tomahawk B450 mobo, a Ryzen 5 3600, 4x8GB of Corsair RAM.

So, in trying to get my system ready for Win 11 and it's requirements (TPM, UEFI, Secure Boot), I basically bricked my system. In essence, I thought I'd be okay doing what I did and I clearly did not.
Now, after hours of troubleshooting, all my disks are wiped (no problems, all backed up). No problem, you'd say, grab your laptop, make an install USB (Using a WD, 2TB SSD in my specific case). I've used the above-mentioned thread to create this file, and this is successful (non video tutorial here). I can boot into the Win11 setup, and I manage to get into the installation.

I'm getting stuck in the Win11 installation, however. After the 4rd step (installing updates) is complete, it is trying to complete the Windows installation. At this point, I keep getting the error mentioned in the title of my post, Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of the installation".

I've searched for several hours and tried several things, such as solutions mentioned here and here (including setting all BIOS settings to defaults, and only changing what is needed to install Win11 (UEFI Boot and TPM). Furthermore, I've taken my 2 2TB HDD's both offline using diskpart in the Win 11 installation. All drives are correctly formatted for GPT, so should be UEFI-ready. I've also tried this, but cannot make the drives bootable (it errors out on /nt60, may have to do with the fact that I'm installing Win 11 and not Win 10).

In my machine, all external things are unplugged except for a bluetooth receiver (used for wireless mouse & keyboard).

Now, do any of you have ANY idea what is needed to resolve this? Of note: I will be going to bed soon and fix this tomorrow, so don't be offended if I don't respond immediately.

Try to update the motherboard bios to the latest, then go to bios again, Load optimized defaults, then enable AMD fTPM, IOMMU, SVM, then save and exit then go to bios again, go to secure boot, enable it, then install the keys, accept/save then let it reboot and then go to bios again to check if the secure boot is on USER mode and the option for the keys are Uninstall or Remove keys, indicating the keys is installed.

And for last, try to download the windows 11 .iso only, and use rufus to create bootable drive, make sure it's on GPT and UEFI (non-csm).

Boot up the flash drive and when given the option upgrade or custom, choose custom, and delete the OS partition (and it's reserved partition, usually it got no name), then click on that unallocated space, and click next. if you are using separate drive for installation, say it's a 256gb ssd for OS only and the rest is on different drives, just wipe the entire 256gb ssd and click on next, so it will be sure that the ssd is on gpt. If you're using 1 drive for both ssd and data, it's better to backup the data before clean installing.

After you've done OOBE, install amd chipset driver first, reboot, then go to power plan and choose amd ryzen balanced, then proceed installing the rest of the drivers.

 

[LVO]

Try to update the motherboard bios to the latest, then go to bios again, Load optimized defaults, then enable AMD fTPM, IOMMU, SVM, then save and exit then go to bios again, go to secure boot, enable it, then install the keys, accept/save then let it reboot and then go to bios again to check if the secure boot is on USER mode and the option for the keys are Uninstall or Remove keys, indicating the keys is installed.

BIOS updated to Win 11 beta build - check.
Rebooted & Optimized Defaults - check
AMD fTPM - was already enabled in the optimized defaults
IOMMU & SVM: In my bios (MSI Click Bios 5) I can't find the options for either.

And for last, try to download the windows 11 .iso only, and use rufus to create bootable drive, make sure it's on GPT and UEFI (non-csm).

Unfortunately, as outlined in my post, I am left with only a Mac device. I've outlined how I've made the bootable medium. I have re-done the entire process with a fresh download of the official windows ISO, to no avail.

Boot up the flash drive and when given the option upgrade or custom, choose custom, and delete the OS partition (and it's reserved partition, usually it got no name), then click on that unallocated space, and click next. if you are using separate drive for installation, say it's a 256gb ssd for OS only and the rest is on different drives, just wipe the entire 256gb ssd and click on next, so it will be sure that the ssd is on gpt. If you're using 1 drive for both ssd and data, it's better to backup the data before clean installing.

Use custom installation of Windows - Check
All my drives are wiped and new partitions are made. When making new partitions, setup always makes both a system partition (100mb) and a MSR (16mb). Deleting these does not help.
Now, I get the error that windows cannot find a system partition...

 

[Koekieezz]

BIOS updated to Win 11 beta build - check.
Rebooted & Optimized Defaults - check
AMD fTPM - was already enabled in the optimized defaults
IOMMU & SVM: In my bios (MSI Click Bios 5) I can't find the options for either.



Unfortunately, as outlined in my post, I am left with only a Mac device. I've outlined how I've made the bootable medium. I have re-done the entire process with a fresh download of the official windows ISO, to no avail.



Use custom installation of Windows - Check
All my drives are wiped and new partitions are made. When making new partitions, setup always makes both a system partition (100mb) and a MSR (16mb). Deleting these does not help.
Now, I get the error that windows cannot find a system partition...

try during custom, press shift+f10, then type diskpart and enter
then select disk # (# = the disk on the list youre going to install) and enter, then convert gpt and enter, them go back to custom again and see if there is unallocated space, press on that and click next.

It is strongly recommended to download the .iso on google chrome or internet download manager. for IOMMU and SVM are usually inside on virtualization settings etc, you need to get deeper on the bios settings.

Also the better fast way is to install windows 10, download google chrome and download rufus and win 11 .iso, after that do the rufus of windows 11 at GPT and UEFI non csm. after that boot to the win 11 installer, and continue by deleting the windows 10 disk to make 1 solid partition of unallocated disk (like new, no format, no system and msr) and click on that then press next.

 

[LVO]

try during custom, press shift+f10, then type diskpart and enter
then select disk # (# = the disk on the list youre going to install) and enter, then convert gpt and enter, them go back to custom again and see if there is unallocated space, press on that and click next.

It is strongly recommended to download the .iso on google chrome or internet download manager. for IOMMU and SVM are usually inside on virtualization settings etc, you need to get deeper on the bios settings.

Also the better fast way is to install windows 10, download google chrome and download rufus and win 11 .iso, after that do the rufus of windows 11 at GPT and UEFI non csm. after that boot to the win 11 installer, and continue by deleting the windows 10 disk to make 1 solid partition of unallocated disk (like new, no format, no system and msr) and click on that then press next.

So, I came to the same conclusion. Let's try a clean Win10 installation, right?

So, I'm stuck at the same point. Clean win 10 iso, installed using the above-mentioned method, boot into installation, I remain at the same point, after step 4 of Windows 10 installation I get the error: cannot prepare the computer for booting the next phase of the installation. Restart the installation again if you want to install Windows.

Somewhere, something is still wrong. Could it be the bios settings, or could it be a hardware problem?

Update: tried installing Win10 on my HDD instead of on my SSD. Same error.

 

[Koekieezz]

So, I came to the same conclusion. Let's try a clean Win10 installation, right?

So, I'm stuck at the same point. Clean win 10 iso, installed using the above-mentioned method, boot into installation, I remain at the same point, after step 4 of Windows 10 installation I get the error: cannot prepare the computer for booting the next phase of the installation. Restart the installation again if you want to install Windows.

Somewhere, something is still wrong. Could it be the bios settings, or could it be a hardware problem?

Update: tried installing Win10 on my HDD instead of on my SSD. Same error.

Hmm, maybe you could try to uninstall the secure boot keys (so no secure boot for now) and install windows 10. and disconnect every device you do have exceptt the flashdrive mouse and keyboard.

Also perform diskpart clean all in the shift+f10 cmd, just remember to select the disk that is going to be installed.

 

[LVO]

SOLVED.

I read somewhere that Windows installer is getting confused if there is more than 1 UEFI-bootable disk connected to reboot into the installation.

Therefore, I removed my external SSD - which contained the Windows 11 Install - after the step "preparing files for the installation" in the windows installer was complete.

Windows continued to reboot and install correctly.

This worked with the Windows 11 setup, so unlike mentioned above, I cleanly installed Win 11.

 

[Koekieezz]

SOLVED.

I read somewhere that Windows installer is getting confused if there is more than 1 UEFI-bootable disk connected to reboot into the installation.

Therefore, I removed my external SSD after the step "preparing files for the installation" in the windows installer was complete.

Windows continued to reboot and install correctly.

This worked with the Windows 11 setup, so unlike mentioned above, I cleanly installed Win 11.

you didn't mention about the things plugged into your pc, anyways dont forget to install amd chipset driver first before anything, reboot, go to power plan and use amd ryzen balanced, then you're good to go on installing the rest of the drivers.

 

[LVO]

you didn't mention about the things plugged into your pc, anyways dont forget to install amd chipset driver first before anything, reboot, go to power plan and use amd ryzen balanced, then you're good to go on installing the rest of the drivers.

I mentioned that I'm using an external SSD to install Windows, which is of course plugged in (otherwise, how could I try to install it?). Nothing that was unnecessary was plugged in.