Black screen after clean install of Windows 10

[Mitchell.scott48]

I've been trying to get Windows 10 on this one computer for two weeks now, it's an hand me down that has worked before with the OS, but after putting a new drive in, three I've tried at this point, I've gotten a mix of a couple of errors; one being a black screen with a cursor, everything seems frozen with no response. Two being the most common, a black screen with everything frozen and no HDD activity. These problems are consistent across all drives and media installation USBs, nothing online anywhere has done me any good, like trying to fix the MBR, turning the system off and resetting the BIOS, updating the BIOS, disconnection peripherals etc. nothing seems to get it past this black screen.

 

[terry4536]

What is the make and model of PC or list of components components?

What is the motherboard and current BIOS version? What BIOS version worked in the past? Have you tried removing the graphics card (if it has one) and use the motherboard video outputs?

 

[SkyNetRising]

nothing seems to get it past this black screen.

At what stage do you get this black screen?
During booting from windows install media?
After installation of windows?

Such symptoms would correspond to OS being installed in UEFI mode, and then trying to boot into legacy mode.

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

What is the make and model of PC or list of components components?

What is the motherboard and current BIOS version? What BIOS version worked in the past? Have you tried removing the graphics card (if it has one) and use the motherboard video outputs?

CPU: AMD FX(tm)-8350 8-core @4GHz
GPU: GTX 970
MEM:8gb @1600mhz

It's a 970A SLI KRAIT edition from MSI and current BIOS ver. is P.4, previous was P.3. I can't remove the GPU, the motherboard doesn't have built in graphics.

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

nothing seems to get it past this black screen.

At what stage do you get this black screen?
During booting from windows install media?
After installation of windows?

Such symptoms would correspond to OS being installed in UEFI mode, and then trying to boot into legacy mode.

It always happens after installing windows, I'm not a 100% sure, but I believe I have the boot set to UEFI instead of legacy, I'll check again to make sure.
EDIT: I checked, it's on UEFI boot mode.

 

[SkyNetRising]

And what are boot priority settings?
Is Windows Boot Manager - 1st in boot order?

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

And what are boot priority settings?
Is Windows Boot Manager - 1st in boot order?

Yes Windows Boot Manager is first and the USB is second, no other boot options are selected.

 

[terry4536]

You haven't given us any information on the drives. How were they formatted? What file system? Were the even formatted on this PC. Do you ever get to Windows? I think the problem is the newly installed drive. I would take that new drive to another system, and format the drive and partition it. I would suggest Basic, NFTS and GPT settings.

Here is an article of formatting, allocating, and partitioning the drive
https://www.howtogeek.com/school/using-windows-admin-tools-like-a-pro/lesson4/

And then make sure that the System Drive is at the top of the Boot Priority list in the BIOS.

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

You haven't given us any information on the drives. How were they formatted? What file system? Were the even formatted on this PC. Do you ever get to Windows? I think the problem is the newly installed drive. I would take that new drive to another system, and format the drive and partition it. I would suggest Basic, NFTS and GPT settings.

Here is an article of formatting, allocating, and partitioning the drive
https://www.howtogeek.com/school/using-windows-admin-tools-like-a-pro/lesson4/

And then make sure that the System Drive is at the top of the Boot Priority list in the BIOS.

The first drive was a 2.5" 2400RPM 250gb hdd, the second a WD Black 7400RPM 4TB hdd, currently the third a WD Blue 4500RPM 3TB hdd, the first two were formatted from the installation USB to MBR, the third from disk manager then converted to MBR from GPT as I would get an error trying to install windows to it in GPT format. I have not gotten to windows on any of the drives as the problem is consistent across them.

 

[terry4536]

Try disconnecting the SATA data cable from all hard drives except the system drive. Then try loading Windows 10 again on that drive. If you can, I would reformat the drive first (using MBR since the other drives use that). This gets around setting the boot priority, and eliminates any confusion on the issue of what drive to load the operating system to.

Another idea is to purchase an SSD, and install the operating system on that (and then add the other hard drives later).

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

Try disconnecting the SATA data cable from all hard drives except the system drive. Then try loading Windows 10 again on that drive. If you can, I would reformat the drive first (using MBR since the other drives use that). This gets around setting the boot priority, and eliminates any confusion on the issue of what drive to load the operating system to.

Another idea is to purchase an SSD, and install the operating system on that (and then add the other hard drives later).

I'm in the process of reformatting the first drive, I'll try the installation process on it again, no other drives have been plugged in other than one at a time.

 

[SkyNetRising]

The first drive was a 2.5" 2400RPM 250gb hdd, the second a WD Black 7400RPM 4TB hdd, currently the third a WD Blue 4500RPM 3TB hdd, the first two were formatted from the installation USB to MBR, the third from disk manager then converted to MBR from GPT as I would get an error trying to install windows to it in GPT format. I have not gotten to windows on any of the drives as the problem is consistent across them.

And which drive windows is installed on?
UEFI system requires disk to be partitioned in GPT. Also accessing capacity larger than 2TB requires disk to be partitioned in GPT.
If you installed to MBR drive, then it is in legacy boot format (not UEFI).

 

[terry4536]

The first drive was a 2.5" 2400RPM 250gb hdd, the second a WD Black 7400RPM 4TB hdd, currently the third a WD Blue 4500RPM 3TB hdd, the first two were formatted from the installation USB to MBR, the third from disk manager then converted to MBR from GPT as I would get an error trying to install windows to it in GPT format. I have not gotten to windows on any of the drives as the problem is consistent across them.

And which drive windows is installed on?
UEFI system requires disk to be partitioned in GPT. Also accessing capacity larger than 2TB requires disk to be partitioned in GPT.
If you installed to MBR drive, then it is in legacy boot format (not UEFI).

I don't recommend using MBR either unless the hard drives are old. Older drives can have support issues with GPT.

The 3TB & 4TB drives are a problem using MBR. Windows doesn't support it (as the system drive).

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2581408/windows-support-for-hard-disks-that-are-larger-than-2-tb

 

[SkyNetRising]

Older drives can have support issues with GPT.

That's not true.

The 3TB & 4TB drives are a problem using MBR. Windows doesn't support it.

That's not true either. 3TB and 4TB drives can be partitioned in MBR. You just cant access full capacity of such drives with MBR partitioning.

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

Well I finally got it to work by a sheer act of God, plugged in the little HDD and finally got a startup error where I can choose safe mode etc. , said it couldn't continue the installation process in safe mode so I restarted and it booted right up into first time setup, got it up and working at the moment. Though I have no idea how to get this to work if I get this problem again.

 

[terry4536]

Older drives can have support issues with GPT.

That's not true.

The 3TB & 4TB drives are a problem using MBR. Windows doesn't support it.

That's not true either. 3TB and 4TB drives can be partitioned in MBR. You just cant access full capacity of such drives with MBR partitioning.

That is what the Microsoft webpage stated. For the large drives to be used as a system drive it required GPT. This was for PCs up to Windows 7, but I assume it was carried on to Windows 10. I don't know for sure because I've only used GPT for years.
I didn't say anything about the storage over 2TB.

 

[terry4536]

Well I finally got it to work by a sheer act of God, plugged in the little HDD and finally got a startup error where I can choose safe mode etc. , said it couldn't continue the installation process in safe mode so I restarted and it booted right up into first time setup, got it up and working at the moment. Though I have no idea how to get this to work if I get this problem again.

I think you will be fine since you reformatted it. Did you use the "little" 250 GB drive as the system drive?

 

[Mitchell.scott48]

Well I finally got it to work by a sheer act of God, plugged in the little HDD and finally got a startup error where I can choose safe mode etc. , said it couldn't continue the installation process in safe mode so I restarted and it booted right up into first time setup, got it up and working at the moment. Though I have no idea how to get this to work if I get this problem again.

I think you will be fine since you reformatted it. Did you use the "little" 250 GB drive as the system drive?

Yeah I did.

 

[terry4536]

Well I finally got it to work by a sheer act of God, plugged in the little HDD and finally got a startup error where I can choose safe mode etc. , said it couldn't continue the installation process in safe mode so I restarted and it booted right up into first time setup, got it up and working at the moment. Though I have no idea how to get this to work if I get this problem again.

I think you will be fine since you reformatted it. Did you use the "little" 250 GB drive as the system drive?

Yeah I did.

If you run into this problem again, consider switching all of the drives to GPT. But I think you will be OK for now.