Problem Solving: Windows Install Asking For Drivers

Here’s a simple thing that I hope someone finds on Google while trying to diagnose this issue.

If you have a USB key that you have put a Linux installer on, and then you use the Windows Media Creation Tool to reformat the key into a Windows install key, the Media Creation Tool will complete creating the key, but then if you boot, rather than going through the installation process it will ask you to provide drivers for your hard disk, and you won’t be able to proceed further.

I don’t know why this is, but it has nothing to do with your actual hard disks/SSDs and everything to do with the USB key and its partition table. You resolve it by:

• Opening Disk Management on Windows;
• Deleting all partitions on the USB key;
• Creating one new partition formatted as exFAT;
• Re-running the Media Creation Tool.

Doing this will fix whatever the Linux install image did to the partition table and allow you to proceed.

I hope this saves someone else half an hour of troubleshooting.