After the latest windows update, my PC was stuck in a boot loop. Automatic repair failed to do anything, uninstalling previous updates didn’t work, and I’ve tried just about every tutorial online and every command line in the command prompt. So I decided to reinstall windows by formatting my C drive as I normally would. But this is where the real issue starts.
It doesn’t let me format my c drive to install windows. It says “we couldn’t format the selected partition. Error: 0x8004242d”. However, wherever I attempt to install windows I get the exact same issue. So it won’t let me format any partition. And it also says it’s because my drive is MBR.
My hard disk (both of them) are in the MBR format. My motherboard has a UEFI bios. Apparently this bios only supports the GPT drive format. It seems like the only option is to convert my drive from MBR to GPT, but this would delete all of my data in the process
So I’m just wondering if there’s any way to salvage my data. I still have my old PC somewhere. Would putting my hard drive into my old pc and installing windows there and then putting it back into my actual PC be a viable option? Or is there a way to enable legacy mode on my motherboard. For reference I have the MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk.
Do you have any spare drives around that you don’t mind wiping the data from?
The way I would do it would be to get a new drive to be my new boot drive install Windows 11 fresh on it and then after installation and set up, reattach my old drives either internally or through USB adapter and try to transfer data off of them.
That would probably have the least risk of data loss and wouldn’t have the problems that setting up your Windows device in legacy BIOS mode would.
I only have a very slow hard drive from my mom’s laptop that she replaced with an ssd. I guess it could be turned into an external hard drive. Other than that not really.
I’m thinking of buying an ssd. I’ve been meaning to buy one for years now since hard drives are a lot slower and I’ve been using the same hard drive since 2011, on a gaming PC no less.
Idk if I should maybe buy an ssd and install windows there. I’m guessing I’d have to unplug my hard drives while doing that.
Another option I guess would be to transfer my current hard drive into my old PC and try to install windows there, assuming my old PC still works, since I haven’t turned it on since March 2021