Upon seeing the error message “Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition,” remove your Windows setup USB from the PC (don’t worry, this is safe since no read or write operations are being made from the USB disk).

When you get this error message, it is possible to work around it easily without having to use diskpart or manually re-partition your disks and drives: The easiest solution for this error is to force Windows to re-arrange its ordering of the drives. Fixes for this error Fix #1: Eject and re-insert the USB If Windows setup cannot reliably determine which is the boot drive, this error will appear. Also, some USB sticks present themselves to Microsoft Windows as a regular drive instead of identifying as a bootable USB. This especially happens when using larger USB drives to install Windows or if you have configured your BIOS to boot from the USB drive first always. You can read everything there is to know about the MBR configuration and boot process here.ĭepending on how your PC is configured and which hardware you are using, Windows setup can sometimes be unable to tell which drive is an external USB drive and which drive is a local disk that Windows should be installed to. This error does not normally apply to EFI and UEFI installations of Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows 10. It depends on your motherboard, your USB interface, the USB stick you are using, and the version of Windows you are installing.ĭuring setup, Windows must identify which drive is your primary boot drive in order to correctly configure the MBR and bootloader. This error is hardware-dependant and its appearance varies from PC to PC. See the setup log files for more information. Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition. If attempting to install Windows from a USB drive, external drive, thumbdrive, USB stick, etc instead of using a CD or DVD, the following error can appear:

3.2 Fix #2: Manually create the boot partition.

3.1 Fix #1: Eject and re-insert the USB.

Windows boot driver