Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition - Installation Error

Hello,

I have my HP Laptop which came with Windows Vista as the OS. I want to upgrade to Windows 7 so I bought Windows 7 from my local store.

I entered the disc and did boot from CD. It reached to the page where it shows the disk partition. I deleted the partitions and created new one. However, whenever I create the partition, it creates a primary one and gives me error saying Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition.

The stupidity that I did was deleted the partition which had the Recovery Drive in it. So, now I am stuck and not able to install Vista as well as Windows 7. I am not able to boot Windows as there is no OS in my laptop now.

Really need your help here.

Please tell me what to do.

Edit: Is the Windows DVD an upgrade version, or a full retail? If you install an upgrade version on a clean drive, it may not activate.

Sometimes, after you do something to the drive you need to refresh the partition windows for the drive to be re-read. There may still be something in the system stopping the process, I just don't have a lot of experience with laptops. But when you format the drive, you are just setting up one partition for Windows 7?

While you are on the partition window, you might try hitting Shift+F10 to get a command window. Then type Diskpart and when it starts, type:

list disk

select disk 0 <-- this assumes you only have one drive

detail disk

You should now see the partitions set up and the type of drive on the far right. If it says GPT, let us know. The partitions should be set as you expect, and if not you might want to go ahead and clean (see below) the drive or try again. Cleaning the drive will remove all data and partitions make sure you are looking at the correct drive...

If you are sure you have removed all the prior partitions and have nothing left to save, you can clean the drive by typing:

clean

When you are finished with Diskpart type Exit, Exit to get back to the partitions page. Refresh the window and try again.

Hello,

Ok, this is what I have done so far. I had Windows 7 disc but my laptop's dvd writer was unable to read it. So, I made a bootable USB and copied all the contents from the disc to the USB. I restarted my laptop and booted from USB. It went to the language installation page and from there to the Partition page. I tried to create a new partition and install Windows but it gave me the error message saying Setup was unable to create a System partition.

So, I came back to the language selection page, pressed Shift + F10 to open the CMD prompt. I did the diskpart and selected the disk 0, cleaned it, created one partition, formatted it, marked it active and then exited. It went to the partition page and I could see that the partition had type as System. So, I clicked Next and still got the same error message.

I removed the CMOS battery and put it back after 45 minutes. It went to BIOS and asked me to set the time and date. I did that and repeated the steps again, this time creating 2 partitions, one of 100GB and marked it as active. It went to the Partition page, I clicked Next and still got the same error.

So, basically I tried all I could find online but nothing worked. I am still stuck, my laptop does not have an OS, and I dont know what to do. I really need help solving this.

Please let me know any suggestions you have to help me.

Thanking you

You don't have to mark it as active. What normally happens, is you tell the install to create a 150GB partition and click OK. You then get a message about Windows needing to add a partition, which you acknowledge. Windows will then create the partitions and format them for you.

If you have some drive configuration you are trying to achieve let us know what that might be.

The next time you do Diskpart, detail the disk and use a camera to take a picture of the readout then post with the paperclip.

I will assume the laptop drive is not larger than 2 TB....

See if this helps. Once you have the disk formatted, go back into bios and select the c drive as the first boot option. Reboot.

Originally Posted by beave88

See if this helps. Once you have the disk formatted, go back into bios and select the c drive as the first boot option. Reboot.

After cleaning the disk as described here, with CMD AND changing the boot order, this finally worked.

I didnt do anything else then cleaning the disc, no need to create new partitions or anything.

Thanks a lot.

1 of 2 problems solved
Cheers

pls any one tell the brief procedure to solve this problem............

Originally Posted by yathiraj

pls any one tell the brief procedure to solve this problem............

I had a similar issue, and I believe the actual solution was making sure that my hard drive 0 was selected as the primary boot option in the bios settings.

This thread was extremely helpful to me.
DISKPART (my favourite tool) to clean the disk
Reboot, changing boot order so blank drive is first, DVD is second
Ensure USB with storage controller driver is plugged in, if required
Partition is recognised and install continues - hurrah!
Thanks to all contributors.

Hi, i tried with diskpart, and than i selected volume under partition i wanted to clean, but process deleted partition with 2 volumes inside. I didn't selected second volume. What to do now to save my lost files in second partition?