Windows 11 Install— Drive Partition Problem
I am happily running Windows 11 now but the install did give me a little trouble. This is just a quick note to help others, since in the install guides I read I did not see this issue covered.
First some background. I am running a Gigabyte Aorus motherboard based on the X570 chipset with a Ryzen 3200G CPU. This motherboard has a firmware TPM (trusted platform module), so I don’t have to do bad things like change the registry to bypass the need for TPM (yes you can).
I wanted to keep Windows 10 just as is and have a dual boot system in case of problems with Windows 11, like software incompatibilities. I installed an M2 SSD just for Windows 11. I knew I that the drive had to use GPT (GUID Partition Table this lets you use greater than 2TB drives and has some other advantages), another Windows 11 requirement and used with UEFI. I used the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snapin for drive management and formatted the drive and used GPT. Turns out that this was a mistake, even though a very normal thing to do.
I changed the BIOS to use UEFI, I disabled CSM (conflicts with UEFI), and enabled secure boot. More things than I have ever done to install an operating system. I made a Windows 11 DVD using the Microsoft Media Creation Tool (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11) and gave it a whirl.
I only got as far as the picture above initially. Drive 3 was the brand new M2 SSD setup with GPT, as required. The error message was not helpful. I tried the format option and it didn’t help. Extend and New were not enabled. Refresh did nothing. My last option was to DELETE the existing partitions on the M2 and see what happens…
And it worked. Turns out the installer does not want your drive to be already have partitions on it, even if GPT. It does it for you, but only from a drive with no partitions.
I hope this helps others.
