information   Data

Sometime agone I had an interesting dilemma: A Windows tablet simply refused to upgrade from Windows 10 version 1607, the Ceremony Update. Due my own actions the only USB port was cleaved, not recognizing any USB wink drives. I had no SD cards available and even if I had institute i, Windows installation can't exist booted from SD card. In addition, to get more storage infinite I had removed factory restore segmentation and extended C: drive to that freed space.

I wanted to clean install wiping the hard deejay (removing and recreating Windows partitions). I knew from earlier experience that when clean installed, although Windows 10 usually is pretty skilful in finding and installing correct drivers, setup would be unable to notice right network drivers for this device (a tablet with Intel Atom CPU). These drivers would demand to exist manually installed later the installation. Otherwise the tablet would be just a worthless brick, a Windows device without network / Internet access, no fashion to add and install them and therefore unable to install rest of the drivers.

Short: I had to detect a way to install without whatsoever external media, and be certain installers for network drivers would exist available after installation.

This tutorial volition show how to do this, how to clean install using it without any external media. Screenshots are from a simulation on a Hyper-V virtual automobile only the method shown will be and piece of work exactly the same on any PC, laptop or tablet regardless if the machine in question is UEFI / GPT or BIOS / MBR device.

This method can of form besides be used fifty-fifty if yous have DVD or USB device available as an alternative method to clean install.

The instructions might expect complicated but trust me, this is an easy and straight forrard procedure. I've tried to make instructions as complete as possible to exist sure that whatever user even with limited knowledge of Windows can manage it by following the instructions to the alphabetic character.

warning   Warning

In my case, the tablet in question I had issues with upgrading had detachable keyboard which made the reinstall possible. If your device is touch simply with no keyboard this method might not piece of work for you.

Earlier proceeding, exam if the touch on control works when device is booted to Control Prompt as told in steps 2.1 through 2.3. If bear upon control is not working, this method does not piece of work for y'all. Do a hard reset (power off, power on) to boot dorsum to Windows.


Contents

 Use links to go to any function of tutorial, back push button of your browser to return to this list.



Note   Note

Parts Three & Four are alternative ways to do the aforementioned affair. Go through parts One & Two, so depending on if you are doing this on a single device without access to a networked PC do part Three, or if you accept access to a networked PC practise function Four instead.

Finish the install doing Part Five.



1.i) Download Windows x ISO image for version yous want to install. Come across this tutorial for how: Download Windows ten ISO File Windows ten Installation Upgrade Tutorials

1.2) Download device commuter installers for chipset and network drivers for your device from its manufacturer's site. You tin of form download all drivers but to get going after make clean install in instance device has no network connection, at least the two drivers mentioned should be available

Note   Annotation

If you have another PC available on your network, clean reinstall without DVD or USB can exist done over network. In that case download ISO and drivers on that some other PC.

If the device you want to clean reinstall is your only available device, download ISO and driver installers on it.

Steps 1.3 through one.9 are required only if you have no other computers bachelor on your local network, and your device only has Windows division C:. If you have other computers available on network, or if the hard deejay on your device you lot want to reinstall already contains additional partitions, you lot can skip these step and continue from pace one.8.

1.3) Create a division to store Windows ISO image and commuter installers past shrinking the C: partition. To do this, open Disk Management (right click Start, select Disk Management), correct click C: division and select Compress Volume:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

ane.4) Shrink C: with 6 GB (6,144 MB):
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

one.5) Right click new partition, select New Simple Volume:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

i.6) New Volume Wizard will open. Accept all defaults by clicking four times Next, finally create the new volume (partition) by clicking Finish:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

ane.7) New sectionalization will exist created and formatted:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

1.8) On new partition, create a folder naming it ISO_Files. Mount the downloaded ISO paradigm as virtual DVD only by double clicking it. Open up mounted ISO in Explorer, select all files and folders with CTRL + A and re-create them with CTRL + C, paste the ISO content to ISO_Files folder on new partition:

Re-create ISO content:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

Paste to ISO_Files folder:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

1.9) Copy the downloaded commuter installers to new segmentation. In my case now, when done I had the contents of ISO and driver installers where I wanted to take them, on additional small vi GB partition:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

Note   Note

Steps one.ten through 1.14 below but for users with network access to another PC. If working on a unmarried device, c ontinue from step two.1 .

1.ten) Create a new folder on other PC, name it as you wish. In this tutorial I use binder proper name W10 Prototype. Copy driver installers to this folder, create a subfolder W10 Paradigm\ISO_Files and copy all content from mounted Windows ISO image this subfolder (see steps 1.8 & 1.9

i.11) Right click the folder containing the ISO files and driver installers, select Properties.

1.12) Select Sharing tab, click Advanced Sharing:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

one.13) Select Share this folder, proper name the share if you are non happy with the default proper noun (binder name), select Permissions:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

1.14) Enable total control for everyone, click OK to close Permissions, click OK to close Advanced Sharing, click Close to save inverse backdrop:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

Part 2

 Boot to Control Prompt


Part Iii

 Run Windows Setup from segmentation on aforementioned PC


Note   Note

If you are using a networked figurer for reinstall, skip to Part Four below. This Part 3 is only for users running Windows Setup from additional division on device in question.

3.1) Bulldoze letters might not exist the aforementioned when booting to Control Prompt. To be sure, we volition check the drive letter for boosted partition containing Windows ten ISO and downloaded driver installers. This can exist washed with DISKPART control.

Enter post-obit commands i by pressing Enter after each command:

diskpart

list vol

exit
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png
(Click to enlarge.)

three.2) I tin can now launch Windows Setup from the ISO_Files folder which in my example is located on drive D: with following command:

D:\ISO_Files\setup.exe
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

(Click to overstate.)

iii.3) Run setup as in normal clean install until y'all reach the drive options screen request on which partiton you want to install. When product fundamental is asked, select I don't have a production key. information technology is not needed in reinstall, Windows x will be automatically activated with digital license:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

Run into Clean Install tutorial if you need any help: Clean Install Windows x Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

iii.4) In drive options, select each partition one past ane (highlighted partitions in screenshot, your bodily segmentation layout may exist different) except the additional partitioning containing Windows ISO files and driver installers and click Delete to remove partitions:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

3.v) When yous only take unallocated space and the sectionalization with ISO files and driver installers left, select the unallocated space and click Side by side to beginning installing Windows. Windows Setup will repartition the HDD automatically:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

iii.6) You can now proceed installing Windows normally (tutorial). Continue from Part V

Part Four

 Run Windows Setup from a networked PC


4.1) When booted to Command Prompt, network needs to be initialized before y'all tin can connect to another PC to run Windows Setup. This is washed with post-obit command:

wpeinit

four.2) Map the shared binder on other PC every bit drive W: with following control, replacing IP-Adress with actual IP address or calculator name of the networked estimator, and ShareName with the proper name the folder was shared in step 1.13:

net utilize W: "\\IP-Address\ShareName"
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

four.3) In this case the network share was mapped as drive West: and the ISO content on that folder is located in folder ISO_Files, I can starting time Windows Setup with post-obit command:

W:\ISO_Files\setup.exe
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

4.4) Run Windows Setup normally until yous reach bulldoze options. When asked, skip the production cardinal (see how in footstep iii.3)

four.5) Remove all partitions from bulldoze 0 past selecting them one past i and clicking Delete (see how in stride 3.4) until you only take unallocated infinite. At present click New. Be conscientious now, be sure to click New. Do non click Side by side!:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

4.6) Past default, setup suggests that y'all apply the full capacity of the HDD for Windows partition:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

4.7) Yet, we demand a pocket-size partitioning for driver installers. In this case I've reduced the suggested size with ii,000 megabits to leave infinite for an additional segmentation to store the commuter installers. When size have been adapted, click Utilize:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

four.viii) Accept with OK:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

four.9) Select the pocket-size unallocated space at the end of HDD, click New:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

4.ten) Click Utilise:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

4.eleven) Click the new, modest partition at end of HDD, click Format:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

4.12) Press SHIFT + F10 to reopen Command Prompt. Check the drive letter for new small partition created in 4.x & 4.xi with DISKPART (see 3.1 for DISKPART instructions).

Copy driver installers from shared folder on networked PC one by one with following command replacing target drive letter X: with bodily drive alphabetic character of the small new partition:

re-create W:\DriverInstallerFileNameWithExtension X:\

For case, if WLAN driver installer filename would be RealtekWLAN.exe, and the modest division would be drive Due east:, the command would be as follows:

copy Due west:\RealtekWLAN.exe E:\

If all driver installers have the same extension, you tin can copy all of them with one control replacing filename with asterisk (*). In my case now, all three driver installers I want to re-create are Cipher archive files with extension .zip, and I want to copy them to new pocket-sized division E:, the command would be every bit follows:

copy W:\*.zip E:\
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png
(Click to enlarge.)

This copies all files with given extension, Aught in this case, to target.

4.xiii) Select the Windows partition (partition 4 on UEFI / GPT machines, sectionalisation ii on BIOS / MBR) and go along

installing Windows usually ( tutorial ). Go on from Part Five:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png


Role V:

 Post install tasks


5.ane) Windows 10 is really good in finding correct drivers, in near cases I have had no demand to install drivers manually. Nevertheless, as so often in calculating, y'all should not trust that Windows can do information technology automatically and exist prepared instead.

That's the reason we downloaded the chipset and network drivers copying them to a small boosted partition, to exist prepared. In example Windows Setup already installed correct network drivers, y'all are ready to go and can skip this step, but if Windows Setup was unable to install right network drivers, you have at present division D: on your HDD containing them.

Run the installers and install drivers manually. Observe that some network drivers crave chipset being up to appointment, I recommend you lot start by installing chipset driver, restart and go along installing network drivers.

When done and you lot have got network and Internet access, you can run Windows Update and install other missing drivers.
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

5.two) When you have network access, you lot can remove the boosted partitioning where you lot had ISO files and commuter installers (single motorcar setup) or driver installers (installing from network) in Disk Management:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

5.3) Extend drive C: using the freed space:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

5.4) Have all defaults by clicking two times Next, so Finish
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png

5.5) You have at present full capacity of HDD to exist used with Windows:
Clean Install Windows 10 without DVD or USB Flash Drive-image.png


That'southward it! The hard deejay was cleaned and wiped and Windows x installed without using any external DVD or USB device.

Kari

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