I'm trying to install windows 10 on a new 1TB SSD I got. fresh install, new drive, new laptop. Dell Inspiron 13 5000. Setup for UEFI. Created a bootable USB using rufus (GPT for UEFI (non CSM)). I get into setup no problem. I delete all the partitions and use diskpart to setup the drive for GPT.
I select the unallocated partition to install to. Windows created the additional partitions that it needs and then it starts the install process. Immediately, it errors with
"windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of
installation"
Spent hours googling with no luck. I haven't been able to find a log file to look at.
What can I try to determine what the problem is?
No other drives installed. legacy mode disabled. Secure boot is off. PTT is off.
Best Answer
I also created a bootable USB to install Windows 10 on a fresh system (as I only had a Mac, I used this great guide), which is also based on a
GPTpartition table on the USB stick. I ended up with the same error message and was stuck for hours with it.EricDAltman's answer and the others finally pointed me to the problem and the solution: The windows installer (yes, in 2020! and UEFI is not really new anymore - and all this while using the latest Windows 10 october 2020 iso) get's into trouble with a
GPTformatted USB stick and presents the message"windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation". The USB stick's GPT somehow interferes with our HDD/SSD where we wanted to install Windows 10 (this is also why geg's solution also worked, since he copied all the installation files to the HDD and unmounted the USB stick which caused the windows installer to work again).The solution is to simply format the USB stick using
MBRpartition table instead ofGPT- so for me doing this on a Mac first:And NOT
diskutil eraseDisk MS-DOS "WIN10" GPT /dev/disk2(I guess with other tools like rufus it's simply a configuration option there also).