Can't perform a Factory reset or reboot my Alienware R3 15" (Windows 10)

I have an Alienware R3 15" that I tried to factory reset directly without a USB-windows-image (at first), here are the steps that I followed :

  1. I had an Ubuntu partition (on dual boot) on this pc so I followed this guide to remove it. Note that I don't have exactly the same partitions as I have an additional HDD & SSD...
  2. I then rebooted and got the message (in french) : "Windows n'a pas pu terminer l'installation. Pour installer Windows sur cet ordinateur, redémarre le programme d'installation", which translates to "Windows could not finish the installation. To install windows on this computer, reboot the installation program".

Since this didn't work, I went and applied these steps :

  1. Next I went to the dell (From another pc) support & downloaded the utility to burn an image on a USB.
  2. Booted windows from the USB using F12, did a system reset by deleting all user files...
  3. System reset finished and I still get the message: "Windows could not finish the installation. To install windows on this computer, reboot the installation program".

I think I messed up something during the selection of primary & secondary boot because I can still see the "Ubuntu" as the secondary boot even if the partition no longer exists.

Here are all the boot options (in order):

UEFI OPTIONS:

  1. Windows boot manager
  2. Ubuntu
  3. Onboard NIC (IPV4)
  4. Onboard NIC (IPV6)
  5. USB1 - UEFI OS(SanDisk)
  6. HDD2 - Windows Boot Manager (Samsung SSD CM871 M.2 2280 128FB)

OTHER OPTIONS:

  1. BIOS Setup
  2. Diagnostics
  3. Peripheral Device Setting (OPROM Setting) [This one is greyed out]
  4. Change Boot Mode Setting
  5. BIOS Flash Update

Could you please help me figure out how to factory reset my computer? Thanks


Solution 1:

You say that you have a boot media for Windows 10 that was created by the Media Creation Tool.

In that case, doing a reset to the disk is simple: Boot with it and do the installation. When you arrive at the disk selection step, select the disk and quick-format it, so it becomes totally Unallocated.

Now select the disk and install Windows. It will allocate the required partitions and install itself.