Question Booting to a black screen with blinking underscore

[nFrostbite]

I've been using an Samsng 860 EVO as my boot drive for about 4 years now, yesterday I shut down my computer as usual and when I booted up today, it goes to a black screen with a blinking underscore at the top left of the screen. I can see the drive in BIOS but when I plug in a Windows 10 boot drive, it doesn't appear in the installation drive options.

Any help is appreciated thanks.

 

[CountMike]

I've been using an Samsng 860 EVO as my boot drive for about 4 years now, yesterday I shut down my computer as usual and when I booted up today, it goes to a black screen with a blinking underscore at the top left of the screen. I can see the drive in BIOS but when I plug in a Windows 10 boot drive, it doesn't appear in the installation drive options.

Any help is appreciated thanks.

"

"black screen with a blinking underscore at the top left of the screen." means that BOOT sector not found. Could be just corrupted file system or drive gone bad.

 

[SkyNetRising]

black screen with a blinking underscore at the top left of the screen." means that BOOT sector not found. Could be just corrupted file system or drive gone bad.

Or BIOS battery has failed, BIOS settings got reset and
system is trying to boot in incompatible mode
(trying to boot in legacy mode, when windows was installed in UEFI).

 

[CountMike]

Or BIOS battery has failed, BIOS settings got reset and
system is trying to boot in incompatible mode
(trying to boot in legacy mode, when windows was installed in UEFI).

If Windows are installed i UEFI mode they will BOOT even if BIOS is in CSM/legacy mode. If installed in n CSM/legacy mode, then they would not start.

 

[nFrostbite]

"

If the drive is dead should it still be showing up in BIOS?

 

[SkyNetRising]

If the drive is dead should it still be showing up in BIOS?

Depends on type of damage.

For mechanical drives -
If drive electronics is dead, it would not show in BIOS.
If there's a problem with drive head positioning/motor, then drive would show in BIOS, but drive capacity would be wrong.

For SSDs
it could show in BIOS with wrong identification or
could be locked in read only mode or
not show at all.

 

[kerberos_20]

If the drive is dead should it still be showing up in BIOS?

does bios show proper drive size?

 

[nFrostbite]

does bios show proper drive size?

Yup BIOS shows "Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB (500.1GB)"

 

[CountMike]

Yup BIOS shows "Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB (500.1GB)"

Disk needs to be tested first. There are many causes that can cause BOOT problems.

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As an all-in-one free partition manager and disk manager software, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free helps manage disk space safely on Windows 11/10/8/7.

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Can boot from USB

 

[nFrostbite]

Disk needs to be tested first. There are many causes that can cause BOOT problems.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

As an all-in-one free partition manager and disk manager software, MiniTool Partition Wizard Free helps manage disk space safely on Windows 11/10/8/7.

www.partitionwizard.com

Can boot from USB

How do I test if I can't see the disk in disk management either

 

[SkyNetRising]

What are sata controller mode settings in BIOS?
Should be set to AHCI (not raid, not Intel RST).

 

[CountMike]

How do I test if I can't see the disk in disk management either

Boot from MiniTool Partiton wizardon a usb

 

[nFrostbite]

What are sata controller mode settings in BIOS?
Should be set to AHCI (not raid, not Intel RST).

 

[nFrostbite]

Boot from MiniTool Partiton wizardon a usb

Just tried, it doesn't see the drive

 

[kerberos_20]

sata 6G_1 - empty
sata 6G_2 - empty

try different sata data/power cable?

 

[nFrostbite]

sata 6G_1 - empty
sata 6G_2 - empty

try different sata data/power cable?

Oops was swapping some drives around so it was on 3 off screen

 

[SkyNetRising]

Oops was swapping some drives around so it was on 3 off screen

How many drives installed? SATA ? M.2 ?
BTW - what's the model name of motherboard?
Did you try booting in UEFI mode and in legacy mode?
Can you show boot priority settings?

Do you have windows on some other drive installed, that you can boot from?

 

[nFrostbite]

How man drives installed? SATA ? M.2 ?
BTW - what's the model name of motherboard?
Did you try booting in UEFI mode and in legacy mode?
Can you show boot priority settings?

Do you have windows on some other drive installed, that you can boot from?

SATA SSD (faulty), SATA HDD (temporary), USB (Windows boot)
ASUS Z97-A
Yes

Right now I'm just trying to get Windows to detect the drive so I can back up the data

 

[nFrostbite]

How many drives installed? SATA ? M.2 ?
BTW - what's the model name of motherboard?
Did you try booting in UEFI mode and in legacy mode?
Can you show boot priority settings?

Do you have windows on some other drive installed, that you can boot from?

Sorry it's been a while, is there any other possible solution for this?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Did you try installing windows on HDD and
diagnose your SSD?

 

[nFrostbite]

Did you try installing windows on HDD and
diagnose your SSD?

I have window installed on the HDD but when but it only boots when the SSD is not connected for some reason, otherwise it'll be stuck on the ASUS splash page

 

[SkyNetRising]

If you have Hot plug enabled on sata port, where SSD is connected, then
you can connect it after windows has been loaded.

 

[nFrostbite]

If you have Hot plug enabled on sata port, where SSD is connected, then
you can connect it after windows has been loaded.

Hot plug is enabled, still unable to see drive

 

[SkyNetRising]

You seem to have no chipset drivers installed.
(download from Asus support, expand chipset section, to see all drivers)

Z97-A｜Motherboards｜ASUS United Kingdom

ASUS mining motherboard features 19 PCI Express® (PCIe®) slots. With 18 PCIe x1 and one PCIe x16 slots on board, plus three zoned ATX12V power connectors, B250 Mining Expert lets you run up to 19 NVIDIA or AMD GPUs* in parallel to max out your megahash rates!

www.asus.com

Check windows storage spaces, if SSD is shown there.
Control Panel\Storage Spaces

 

[nFrostbite]

You seem to have no chipset drivers installed.
(download from Asus support, expand chipset section, to see all drivers)

Z97-A｜Motherboards｜ASUS United Kingdom

ASUS mining motherboard features 19 PCI Express® (PCIe®) slots. With 18 PCIe x1 and one PCIe x16 slots on board, plus three zoned ATX12V power connectors, B250 Mining Expert lets you run up to 19 NVIDIA or AMD GPUs* in parallel to max out your megahash rates!

www.asus.com

Check windows storage spaces, if SSD is shown there.
Control Panel\Storage Spaces

Chipset installed