12 hours later: I'm out of even nonsense ideas. PC is ewaste, be a year or two before I can afford a cheap one from Walmart or smth. I sometimes amaze myself, followed a straightforward installer so wrong it killed my PC. That's actual talent, really.

Least I still got the phone.

Installed Nobura so wrong it killed my windows install, isn't installed, and I can't install any os to any drive

If I get my computer back up I am learning the lesson I am too incompetent for linux

This is a total replacement of original title and body text

  • the_itsb [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    1 month ago

    do you have another computer around with a spare slot to pop one of those drives into? that would allow you to use cmd to clean the drive and give it the correct formatting for installing Windows

      • Gorb [they/them]
        ·
        1 month ago

        If you still have windows on the drive you can use a windows boot drive and potentially might be able to recover it and the boot files.

        Otherwise the drive can be wiped and setup again using diskpart https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-format-hard-disk-during-installation-of/cc409a0a-5c64-4fa4-951a-061b8a4215b6

        I hope there isn't important data in the drive. If you have something to backup your data with I'd suggest that first

        • ComradeWizardmon
          ·
          1 month ago

          Already tried wiping the drive with gparted usb, tried installing to a backup empty drive with all the rest disconnected. Tried the cmos button.

          Prolly just have a wrong boot usb but can't make another. I'll see about buying one in a few months