unable to uninstall turbotax from drive that's not available

[sasgrw]

I had TT 2018 installed on an external drive and that drive went bad.  I'm trying to finish up my taxes (filed extension in April, now due in October) so want to reinstall on a new drive.  When I try to do that, TT says it's already installed and that I need to uninstall it.  

I've tried the following:

• Used the Remove button from the TT install when it displayed a dialog that it was already installed.
• Tried to uninstall from Program Files (Control Panel)
• Tried to forcefully uninstall as explained on https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/installing/help/forcefully-uninstall-and-reinstall-turbotax/00/260...
  • that included uninstalling individual files from Program Files\Common Files\Intuit\TurboTax\TY18\PER\MSI
    • there were four .msi files in that folder.  three of them successfully uninstalled.
    • WinPerReleaseEngine.msi would not uninstall because it says it can't find the drive it was installed on (because that drive is bad and no longer exists)
  • restarting
  • attempting to reinstall
• Tried to re-uninstal from Program Files (Control Panel) again but this time when it failed, said "yes" to "remove from program list?".

Nothing is working.  It still thinks it's installed and I have no access to the previous drive it was installed on.

[Anonymous]

your only recourse is to contact support.       

it may be that although you ran the program uninstaller, and manually deleted the files recommended by TT,  there may be entries left behind in the windows registry blocking reinstallation. .   don't know about Macs or Apple computers

have you deleted items from the program data folder and some others that TT says you should delete.   They are hidden. 

to unhide them choose tools (at top of any folder)  - then folder options - then view then check show hidden files, uncheck when done 

have you tried reinstalling using the run as administrator option?