Clean install fail, what now??

I am a little confused after reading your post. Did you download the media creation tool here? After downloading the tool you would insert a flash drive, I recommend at least 8 GB or preferable 16 GB, and run the tool. It will create a bootable Windows installation flash drive. After the drive is created you would reboot the system and if it does not boot from the flash drive then reboot and tap F12 immediately at boot. Choose the flash drive as the boot device and from that point on you should be able to select the destination HDD/SSD and install Windows.

This YouTube video is an excellent tutorial on the procedure.

I've never seen that Windows installation screen looking quite like that: it's saying it detects one drive present (besides the installation media) which has no partitions defined and a total size of ZERO. Since you didn't share your model number/configuration (please do!) I don't know what its capabilities are, but if pre-boot diagnostics are available, you might want to run them to check the current state of your system.

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@Jude14352 wrote:

So after a few non drastic attempts to get pc out of black error screen, I decided to do a clean install of windows 10. Got a brand new usb flash drive, downloaded the install media, put it into pc, started it back up, went straight into the install prompts, but when I get to the step that asks "where do you want to install windows" There is nothing to choose from. Drive 0 has zero free space and if I try to load it or it says that there is no device.... Im running in circles, just need someone to walk me through this, what am I doing wrong?

 

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The only thing I can think of is that the USB flash drive that you created cannot see the hard drive which has GPT partition table.

Or your hard drive is hosed and you need to buy a new one.

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@Jude14352 

Continuing your other thread for your 790 would've been just fine.  https://www.dell.com/community/Optiplex-Desktops/Optiplex-790-boot-configuration-error-0xc000014c/m-p/8181630#M58254 

Could you please tell us everything you can about the drive you're trying to install to?

For example:

• HDD or SATA SSD
• New or used
• If new, is drive at least initialized. If initialized, it'll show whatever its GB is in Disk Management.  If not, it'll show as 0GB.  (Though you'd have to see that on another PC.)
• Is it the same drive that gave you BSOD.
• Size of drive may even be helpful.
• Is it formatted to NTFS and using GPT partition scheme.

I think your best bet is to load on a new drive, not sure if I mentioned already.

Double-checking - Is BIOS set to UEFI and AHCI?  Legacy Option ROMs off.

If you load on a new drive, when you get to that screengrab you uploaded, not only should its total space show, but Windows will also do the rest - Format and partition before loading once you click on install.

Also, if you're drive was still good that had Win10, the partitions Win10 created should still show.  In which case, again in that same screengrabbed window, you would then delete the previous partitions that Win10 created that gave you BSOD and then install the fresh Win10.

Showing location of Legacy Option ROMs:

One way to wipe the drive that gave you BSOD is to reformat it, even if it's already NTFS and GPT.  Not the best bet though if the drive already failed.

I've been thru a few Win10 reloads myself.  One way or the other, I'm sure it'll get working again. 

I'm sure you already know, forced Windows updates can only be delayed.  I use one VelociRaptor HDD with an older version of Win10 because newer versions have a couple of bugs I don't like, including in Windows Media Player.  So a newer version is on an SSD.

The older version of Win10 is never online.  It was only online to activate stuff.

This doesn't mean one can just plug in 2 drives with Win10.  Microsoft doesn't like 2 drives in the same PC with Win10.  So one drive will sabotage the other and thus BSOD, note the b.s. part.  So my 2 bootable Win10 drives are in hot swap bays with power buttons so one drive doesn't detect the other.

I do have a music storage drive in the normal internal HDD bay.  Can only access from one of the drives.  Otherwise, the other drive will see it as a common denominator and sabotage it by freezing certain files and make me reload it.