Unable to install OS

[Nateman25]

I may have made a big mistake here. I have a PC in my possession that I am trying to install a new operating system on. My girlfriend has a newer HP laptop that has been having some issues software wise, so I decided to simply wipe the drive and install Windows 7 (being that it had Windows 10 prior) but I may have completely destroyed the poor thing. For whatever reason it has 7 partitions (most of which protected) so I wiped the only partition that was allowed, which was Disk 0 Partition 4. Needless to say, I killed it.

I have a USB with Windows 7 as bootable, and it opens the setup just fine. However, it will not allow me to format ANY of the partitions. So at this point, all the darn thing does is boot to the repair launcher - which attempts in vain to diagnose the PC - only to come up empty handed. So far, I think I've reduced it to a hunk of a junk.

Does ANYONE have an idea on how to fix this? Have I completely ruined this 700+ dollar notebook? I have a feeling there is a way to fix this, but with my limited knowledge, I have no idea how to remedy this.

If anyone has a clue of how to help me restore this PC, I will be very thankful. (And my girlfriend will be too!)

 

[MadmanRB]

It probably deleted the boot UEFI partition, Windows 7 doesnt naively support UEFI without some trickery plus some hardware may be set up to use newer OS's only.
I guess your girlfriend hated windows 10?

 

[Jabo7891]

Get a new hard drive and do the install .

 

[Nateman25]

She would actually be fine with windows 10. I recommended Windows 7 because it tends to be more stable in gaming endeavors. I'm aware I could just purchase another hard drive, but the one it has is perfectly fine. I just deleted important information, apparently. So how would I fix this using a clean Windows 10 install, then?

 

[MadmanRB]

That or boot repair, depending on how much the damage went

 

[Nateman25]

Boot repair doesn't seem to do anything. I've told it to reinstall the OS several times, it never goes anywhere.

 

[carnageX]

She would actually be fine with windows 10. I recommended Windows 7 because it tends to be more stable in gaming endeavors. I'm aware I could just purchase another hard drive, but the one it has is perfectly fine. I just deleted important information, apparently. So how would I fix this using a clean Windows 10 install, then?

Download Media Creation Tool on your box, create bootable flash drive if you don't have one already.

If you're unable to delete partitions from within the Windows installer, then get a copy of GParted, boot into that LiveCD/LiveUSB, and then nuke the drive. Delete all partitions / create new partition / format as NTFS.

Then boot back into the Windows installer and install onto the fresh partition as normal.

 

[Nateman25]

Thank you for the response. How do I run GParted considering the PC in question is not possible to boot? That being, I cannot access the PC beyond the "startup repair" splash?

 

[carnageX]

Thank you for the response. How do I run GParted considering the PC in question is not possible to boot? That being, I cannot access the PC beyond the "startup repair" splash?

GParted is a LiveCD/LiveUSB based on Linux - so you'll put it on one of those and then boot off of that. Then you'll have access to the drive. I assume you don't need to back anything up, right?

 

[Nateman25]

Backup has already been done. Whatever is left on the PC is not important, if there is anything left. I will try what you've suggested.