Question Failed to do Win10 restore, did a system wipe. Cannot get windows to launch after USB install.

[MBackle]

I recently purchased a lot of new hardware (G.Skill Flare X 8gig 2400mhz x2(now 32g total), Gigabyte RTX 2070, Samsung Evo 860 SSD). With all the new upgrades my GPU was under performing based on UserBenchmark scores. I was unsure how or why, so I started updating a bunch of my drivers using IOBit's Driver Booster 6. This did not help. I was randomly crashing in certain games, blue screened in Metro Exodus. So with all this I decided the issues may be windows based. I went to do a system restore. It failed. So I backed up all the files I cared about onto an external hard drive and went forward with doing a complete system wipe. I used cmd to wipe the drives then used my win10 boot drive to install windows 10 onto the new evo 860. After installation I rebooted and was prompted with a black screen with a message stating to insert a boot drive. I then realized I left the usb in the slot. I restarted, removed the usb, got the same message. I restarted and went into my BIOS to ensure my boot priority. Evo 860 was #1. Got the same message on a black screen. So I went and unhooked all the drives except the 860, reinstalled windows on it again after reformatting it. Same thing happened. I can verify that windows is installing onto the drive because when I boot into the usb it shows the drives space, 9+ gigs is being used up. It just refuses to boot into it. Any possible solutions??

 

[Colif]

What motherboard do you have?

Some motherboards have a priority boot order where you can set a device to boot off once and then next boot it will use the default. If yours has such a feature, set USB as 1 off and set SSD as default.

 

[MBackle]

What motherboard do you have?

Some motherboards have a priority boot order where you can set a device to boot off once and then next boot it will use the default. If yours has such a feature, set USB as 1 off and set SSD as default.

Thanks for responding. I have a Gigabyte AB350 Gaming 3
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-AB350-Gaming-3-rev-1x#kf

 

[MBackle]

So today I tried installing onto one of my 2 HDD instead of installing windows 10 directly to the 860 Evo. Voila! For some reason this method worked and I cannot explain the reasoning behind it. Can win10 not be installed to an SSD via usb? Anyways, from here I will just migrate windows to the SSD and hope that my hardware issues are resolved.

EDIT
So I did get to boot into windows on the HDD. However in order for it to work I had to keep the usb plugged in. After several restarts trying to format the SSD's so I could migrate the windows install, it all stopped working and now I am back at square one. This has become the most frustrating computer issue I have ever had to deal with. 3 days of this nonsense.

 

[Colif]

Boot Override Allows you to select a device to boot immediately. Press on the device you select and select Yes to confirm. Your system will restart automatically and boot from that device.

Page 34 of your motherboard manual. This would be where you put USB drive and have the ssd/hdd in the boot order as 1st in line

 

[onespeedbiker]

Here are some other BIOS settings that the OP might have missed from pages 26 and 27. Page 26 has a graphic showing how setup boot from an M.2 drive.


Hard Drive/CD/DVD ROM Drive/Floppy Drive/Network Device BBS Priorities Specifies the boot order for a specific device type, such as hard drives, optical drives, floppy disk drives, and devices that support Boot from LAN function, etc. Press <Enter> on this item to enter the submenu that presents the devices of the same type that are connected. This item is present only if at least one device for this type is installed.

Windows 10 Features Allows you to select the operating system to be installed. (Default: Other OS)

http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-ab350-gaming3_e.pdf

I have also read Samsung M.2 drives require drivers and their Magician software to boot from certain chip sets. https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/#magician

It should also be noted the Samsung 860 Evo is a Sata drive, not a NVMe SSD. Both use the M.2 interface, but the Sata drive requires ACHI and Sata mode (but not RAID or UEFI) .