Duration: 9:38

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This video will instruct in using either the Dell Data Wipe utility included in the Dell UEFI BIOS or the command line based utility Diskpart included in the Windows Installation Media to remove the partition table on a drive before Windows installation. This is required when the Windows Installation Media cannot recognise the partition table after switching from a Legacy Boot to a UEFI Boot or vice-versa usually with the following error messages:

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk has an MBR partition table. One EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks."

"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style."

This may also address the following error however the following error commonly displays when the installation media is corrupt or lacks the storage controllers required to read the internal drive (common with Windows 7 installation media as Microsoft never incrementally updated the installation media with driver support):

"We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. For more information, see the Setup log files"

Contents:
01:15 Entering the UEFI BIOS Setup (Press F2 at power up on a Dell PC)
01:23 Removing old Boot Entries and configuring your SATA Operation
02:17 Dell Data Wipe (Late 2015 Systems or Newer).
04:40 Booting using Windows Installation Media (F12 at Power up on a Dell PC)
04:50 Launching the Command Prompt from Windows Installation Media (Press Shift + F10)
05:23 Use of Diskpart to Format (clean) or Wipe (clean all) a Drive

Diskpart commands:
diskpart
list disk
select disk 0 (or relevant disk number)
clean
clean all

Note: it is better to use a data wipe routine designed for a SSD for a SSD due to the speed of wiping each cell collectively instead of individually and due to the fact that it is less intensive on a SSD. For this reason I start with Dell Data Wipe and then move onto Diskpart demonstrating both clean and clean all. Dell Data Wipe is the preferred method however not all computers have Data Wipe in the UEFI BIOS Setup.

SSDs have limited write cycles, the SSD Endurance of a Crucial BX500 for example is specified by Crucial to be 360 TB meaning 360 TB of data can be written to the SSD before it begins to fail. Using diskpart clean all will intensively write 0s to each cell of the SSD. If for arguments sake the SSD is a 1 TB SSD, then clean all (1 pass) will write 1 TB of data to it albeit all the data will be zeros. Therefore running clean all (360 passes) on a BX500 SSD may bring the SSD towards the end of its life cycle.

Windows Feedback for Microsoft to improve Diskpart to better support SSDs (please upvote and leave a comment):
https://aka.ms/AAdd77f

Lenovo systems have Securely Erase HDD Data (works for SSDs) under Security within their UEFI BIOS Setup (requires a temporary drive password to be set):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsP-A2ZM8t0&ab_channel=PhilipYip

Microsoft Surfaces Devices use the Surface Eraser Bootable USB:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUazixELnDE&ab_channel=PhilipYip

If your system is too old to have a Data Wipe Utility embedded in the UEFI BIOS Setup. The Parted Magic Utility can be used to make a UEFI Bootable USB and can be used to invoke a more appropriate data wipe routine for a SSD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqHp500g0tw&ab_channel=PhilipYip

#Wipe #Format #Partition