Hope this is okay within the scope of the forum. “Argued” a bit with the Windows installer myself lately.
If you google-fu’d and come across this, attempting to install Windows to an external USB drive, or get that error for some reason from an internal drive.
There are several solutions, of whom which only a couple are almost guranteed to work.
1 - The free / best
Use Rufus off of another pc running Win to drop a “Windows to go” onto the target USB drive you want to run Windows from. It could be an nvme in an enclosure, even a USB stick or memory card in some circumstances. You have to be somehow able to access it from a working Windows, SATA to USB, m2 to USB, whatever.
Core thing here is selecting GPT partition scheme and UEFI, as well as “Windows to go” under “Image option” dropdown.
As you proceed you will get the option to disalbe TPM checks and so forth, something you are likely to want to do.
This will basically create a Windows install on the chosen drive pretty similar to what pops up on a brand new pc with WIndows preinstalled, meaning you will have to ploink in a few things during install.
PS!
and
are great options to debloat your Windows install as best you can.
2 - Shall not be named.
There is a paid tool with something “Win” in it’s name that can accomplish the same that I will not mention. Use Rufus.
3 - An alternative.
In some cases this might work, maybe in particular if you get this error on an internal drive. When at the partition screen in the Windows installer, shift + F10 will bring up the console. On a Chromebook shift + the key next to the power button is probably F10.
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NOTE! These steps will loose you access to any data on that drive.
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Type “diskpart”.
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Type “list disk”.
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If only one disk visible, type “select disk 0” (if not use the correct number).
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Next, type “clean”
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Finally, type “convert GPT”.
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Type “exit” and return to the partition manager.
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If you are not able to do this, boot the device with a linux live iso of some sort and use the graphical interface of Gparted to delete partitions and set the disk to GPT. If unsure how, Google it.
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If you are able to do all of this and it does not work, look at 1. again, or alternative 4.
4 - final.
There is a final solution which is basically manually partitioning the disk and copying the correct files from the Windows installer ISO over to the various partitions. I won’t outline it here as I haven’t tried it personally, just be aware it exist and probably works, albeit fiddly.
This should get you some parts of the way.
[Windows 11 Install manually · GitHub](https://Windows 11 manual install)