Hello everyone,
I'm reaching out after several days of unsuccessful attempts to reinstall Windows (10 or 11) on my Dell Inspiron 5570 laptop (with an Intel Core i5-8250U, 16GB of RAM, 1TB SATA SSD + 256GB NVMe SSD). I'm running out of ideas and hope someone can help.
➡️ Context
My PC had been running a dual-boot setup with Ubuntu + Windows 11 (version 22H2) for a long time, and everything was working perfectly.
However, Windows could no longer update or reset (errors related to the recovery partition) since around December.
So, I wanted to cleanly reinstall Windows 11 on the NVMe SSD, where it had been installed for several years.
I used official Microsoft ISOs (Win10 and Win11), created with the media creation tool or woeusb under Ubuntu Live.
➡️ Symptoms
The installer starts normally from a USB drive or external disk.
I delete all existing NVMe SSD partitions and start the installation on the unallocated space.
The installation begins, reaches about 70% to 80%, then fails with messages like:
* "Windows could not update the computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed." (for W10)
* "Windows 11 installation failed" (without further details for W11 24H2).
The failure of the installation also appears to have damaged grub, since the dual boot and Ubuntu no longer work. So, I only have an Ubuntu live USB to boot my PC and prepare my Windows boot drives...
➡️ What I've Tried
* Disconnecting the 1TB SATA drive containing Ubuntu: no other partitions or drives than the NVMe visible during installation.
* BIOS access:
* Boot mode: UEFI (no Legacy).
* Secure Boot tested enabled/disabled.
* BIOS updated to the latest version (1.14.0 on Dell).
* Manual partitioning with diskpart:
* Properly creating EFI, MSR, and Primary partitions (GPT).
* Complete disk cleaning with clean and convert gpt.
* Tests with Windows 10 and Windows 11 (23H2 and 24H2) ISOs.
* Installation media creation:
* With woeusb from Ubuntu live, manually following the Ubuntu website procedure, with the official Microsoft bootable disk creation program.
* USB drive and external disk tested.
* Verification with tpm2-tools from Ubuntu live: TPM 2.0 is present.
* No missing driver error messages in the installer.
➡️ Additional Info
* The NVMe drive worked perfectly before.
* Ubuntu Live can read and write to it without problems.
* diskpart does not detect the drive as write-protected.
* The error remains exactly the same, regardless of the method or ISO.
❓ Question
Why does the installation systematically fail during the boot configuration phase?
What else can I try to work around this problem?
Thank you in advance for your help!