Error while installing Windows 10 on GPT partition - any solution to not to format whole disk?

Question

I previously had Windows 10 and Ubuntu both installed on my system. My Windows 10 got corrupted so I decided to reinstall windows on C Drive (/dev/sda8). But it gave me an error so I decided to format C-Drive and then install Windows 10. Unfortunately, I am still unable to install Windows 10.

I am able to boot into Ubuntu and this is my Partitions in GParted :

Partitions on Gpart

I've deleted the old partitions created by windows so that I could install it fresh.

Now what I've tried is that I created a bootable Windows 10 USB using WoeUSB on Ubuntu and attempted to install Windows 10.

This is the error I got - " Windows detected that the EFI System Partition was formatted as NTFS. Format the EFI System partition as FAT32 and restart the installation. "

After searching on the internet I found that I've to delete all partitions and then convert the disk into MBR to install windows 10.

But I really don't want to delete partition /dev/sda10 which is my D: Drive containing only data and /dev/sda9 which has Ubuntu.

/dev/sda2 and /dev/sda7 both has the ubuntu bootloader

My system is UEFI based and Secure boot is off and I have no idea whether WoeUSB creates MBR or GPT bootable USB.

Is there any solution to install windows 10 without losing all partitions?

Edit: I tried this solution - Link by user @grawity

sudo gdisk /dev/sda8 gave this as output :

enter image description here

Answer 1

Switching to MBR is not a workaround and may cause more problems than it solves not to mention you don't get the benefits of GPT.

/dev/sda8 is a partition so opening gdisk on it attempts creating a partition table on that partition. You do not want to do this. When opening gdisk use /dev/sda

Based on the error message you got from Windows installer I can tell you it was in UEFI mode so your WoeUSB install is probably alright.

Windows is probably getting confused because you have two ESPs.

• Abhishek Roul: Deleting the extra Boot Esp flagged partition worked for me.