This article lists some solutions that will help you fix Windows cannot be installed to this disk. Setup does not support USB or IEEE 1394 port error while installing Windows 11/10. This error usually occurs while installing Windows OS on an external hard drive. However, some users also encountered this error while installing Windows 11/10 on an internal hard drive.
Windows cannot be installed to this disk. Setup does not support configuration of or installation to disks connected through a USB or IEEE 1394 port.
While performing Windows 11/10 installation, you must select the disk on which you want to install Windows 11/10. According to the users, a warning message appears on the bottom left side of the installation wizard screen. The complete error message is displayed after clicking on this warning message.
Setup does not support configuration of or installation to disks connected through a USB or IEEE 1394 port
Below, we have mentioned some solutions to fix the Setup does not support configuration of or installation to disks connected through a USB or IEEE 1394 port error while installing Windows 11/10.
This error can also occur due to improper formatting of the hard drive or unsupported partition table. Use the following solutions to fix this error:
- Format the hard drive properly
- Change the Partition Table
- Are you using Windows To Go certified USB drives?
- Use Rufus or another third-party software
Let’s see all these fixes in detail.
1] Format the hard drive properly
One possible cause of this error is incorrect formatting of the hard drive. If you have not formatted the hard drive correctly, it may cause issues while performing Windows OS installation.
Go through the following instructions.
Exit the Windows installation wizard by clicking on the red cross on the top right side. Now, press the Shift + F10 keys. This will launch the Command Prompt.
- Type diskpart and hit Enter.
- Now, type list disk and hit Enter. You will see all the hard disks connected to your computer.
- Now, select the hard disk on which you want to install Windows 11/10 or the earlier version of Windows OS. To do so, type select disk #. Replace # with the correct disk number. You will see the Disk # is now the selected disk message.
- Type clean and press Enter. It should display the Diskpart succeeded in cleaning the disk message.
- Close the Command Prompt window and proceed with Windows installation.
Do note that the above steps will clear all the data on the selected hard drive. Therefore, select the correct hard drive in step 3 above.
2] Change the Partition Table
If the error occurs due to the unsupported partition table, you have to change the partition table of your hard disk. Change the partition table from MBR to GPT and then see if it helps.
3] Are you using Windows To Go certified USB drives?
Windows To Go is the Windows OS installed on an external hard disk. It differs from the standard Windows installation in which the Windows OS is installed on the internal hard disk.
For successful Windows To Go installation, you should have a Windows To Go certified hard drive. Windows To Go certified USB hard drives are built for high random read/write speeds and support thousands of I/O operations per second required for running normal Windows workloads smoothly.
If you are using a USB hard drive that is not certified for Windows To Go installation, you cannot install Windows 11/10 on that drive or you will experience issues while doing that. You will get more information on the official website of Microsoft.
4] Use Rufus or another third-party software
You can also use third-party software to install Windows on an external hard drive. Rufus is one of the great tools available to install Windows OS. You can download Rufus from its official website. If you do not want to install it, you can download its portable version.
Open Rufus and select your hard drive from the Device drop-down. Now, click on SELECT and select the Windows ISO file. After that select Windows To Go in the Image option drop-down. Select GPT in the Partition scheme. When you are done, click START to begin Windows OS installation on the external hard drive.
If you do not see the targeted hard drive in the Device drop-down, click on the Show advanced drive properties option and select the List USB Hard Drives checkbox.
Read: Windows cannot be installed to this disk, The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.
How to install Windows 10 on a USB SSD?
You can easily install Windows 10 and other versions of Windows OS on an external hard drive (both SSD and HDD). To make the process simpler, you can use third-party tools, like Rufus.
Related:
- Windows must be installed to a partition formatted as NTFS
- The selected disk has an MBR partition table
- Ensure disk controller is enabled in BIOS
- This computer’s hardware may not support booting to this disk.
How to format USB to FAT32?
Right-click on the USB drive that you want to format and select Format. When the Format window appears, select FAT 32(Default) in the drop-down and then click Start to begin formatting.
Read next: Windows cannot be installed to this disk, The disk may fail soon.
