We Couldn't Create a New Partition or Locate an Existing One in Windows 11, How to Fix?

Windows installer will create 3 volumes from unallocated space but errors on installation. Each of them is only a few 100 MB at max and the main data volume which takes up the rest of the space. When I try to install Windows onto the largest volume on the drive, I get an error: We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one. How to fix it?

In Windows 11, one of the most common setup errors is "We Couldn't Create a New Partition or Locate an Existing One." It may be caused by interference from the connected peripherals. So the first action you should take is disconnecting all external storage devices. If this does not work, you can try the following methods to resolve the problem. Here is a list of the methods:

• Run EaseUS Partition Master
• Set the Drive as the First Boot Device
• Active your partition Using Diskpart
• Format the Drive with Diskpart
• Covert the target drive to GPT

Continue to follow the specific tutorials in the following part:

Fix 1. Run EaseUS Partition Master

To fix this problem quickly, you can turn to a third-party tool - EaseUS Partition Master, which can mark your partition as active. Moreover, this tool is easy to operate and experienced in partition problem-solving.

Learn how to set your partition active using EaseUS Partition Master as follows:

Step 1. Run EaseUS partition manager software. Right-click the target partition and select "Advanced."

Step 2. Click the drop-down menu and choose "Set Active." Click "Yes" > "Execute 1 Task(s)" > "Apply" to finish.

Fix 2. Set the Drive as the First Boot Device

The second way is to set the target drive as a boot device in BIOS settings. Below is a step-by-step guide:

Step 1. Reboot your computer and press F12, F10, F1, F2, or CTRL + ALT + ESC to enter BIOS settings during booting.

Step 2. Under the boot device menu, move the target drive to the top.

Step 3. Restart the PC to see if the problem is solved.

Fix 3. Active your partition Using Diskpart

Apart from the above methods, you can run command lines in Diskpart to set the target drive as active:

Step 1. Close the setup and choose the "Repair" button after you get the "We couldn't create a new partition" error message. 

Step 2. Open "Advanced Tools" and then click on Command Prompt to enter the following CMD:

• list disk
• select disk X(Replace X with the target drive number)
• list partition
• select partition X
• active

Step 3. Type exit and hit "Enter" to quit.

Refer to the related article below to find details of fix 4 and 5:

More Information: Fix "We Couldn't Create a New Partition or Locate an Existing One"