Question How to fix Windows booting with a black screen and a blinking cursor

[Exino_]

I bought a new SSD yesterday and i plugged it in and started resetting my pc. I installed windows on the SSD but everytime i boot my pc up it takes about 20 extra seconds because i have to wait for the black screen with the blinkin cursor to disappear. Please help me.

 

[Colif]

can you right click start
choose disk management
expand the window
take a screenshot and upload to an image sharing website (ie.. imgur) and show a link here

what are specs of PC?

Did you remove old drive when you installed on ssd?

did you remove old drive from boot order?

 

[Exino_]

https://imgur.com/hC6plml

View: https://imgur.com/hC6plml


i5-8600K
GTX 950 GAMING 2G
16GB 2666mhz
MSI z370 tomahawk

I didnt change anything with the boot order

I plugged out the old drive while installing windows on the ssd

 

[Colif]

Think its just the boot method

on the boot tab, what is showing in Boot mode select? Its on page 51 of your motherboard manual

Since your ssd is formatted as GPT it should just be UEFI
the default is Legacy + UEFI
Legacy would suit your old hdd format, and since your boot drive is in GPT, the legacy boot method would just sit there unable to boot. until it times out and tries the UEFI boot method and starts right away.

Legacy boot method matches MBR. MBR disks have their boot partition as 1st one. Your disk 0 is in MBR, its system partition (system reserved) is the boot partition.
UEFI boot method matches GPT. GPT disks can have boot partition anywhere on drive, your disk 1 is in GPT, its EFI partition is the boot partition.

So a legacy boot method meeting a GPT drive will just sit there going, can't find a partition.
UEFI can boot both since it was created to replace legacy.

What i think is happening is PC tries to use Legacy boot method on disk 1 but after 20 seconds swaps to UEFI and boots normally. Restricting it to UEFI boot method should remove the time.

 

[Exino_]

Think its just the boot method

on the boot tab, what is showing in Boot mode select? Its on page 51 of your motherboard manual

Since your ssd is formatted as GPT it should just be UEFI
the default is Legacy + UEFI
Legacy would suit your old hdd format, and since your boot drive is in GPT, the legacy boot method would just sit there unable to boot. until it times out and tries the UEFI boot method and starts right away.

Legacy boot method matches MBR. MBR disks have their boot partition as 1st one. Your disk 0 is in MBR, its system partition (system reserved) is the boot partition.
UEFI boot method matches GPT. GPT disks can have boot partition anywhere on drive, your disk 1 is in GPT, its EFI partition is the boot partition.

So a legacy boot method meeting a GPT drive will just sit there going, can't find a partition.
UEFI can boot both since it was created to replace legacy.

What i think is happening is PC tries to use Legacy boot method on disk 1 but after 20 seconds swaps to UEFI and boots normally. Restricting it to UEFI boot method should remove the time.

So how do i fix this?

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Go into bios, under boot section, there should be a line that says csm, or boot compatability, it probably says Legacy and Uefi,change that to Uefi only. It should start normally then.

 

[Colif]

on the Advanced Menu, under Windows OS Config, enable Windows 10 WHQL Support

Enables the supports for Windows 10 or disables for other operating systems. Before enabling this item, make sure all installed devices & utilities (hardware & software) should meet the Windows 10 requirements.

[Enabled] The system will switch to UEFI mode to meet the Windows requirement.

[Disabled] Disables this function.

that will automatically set up the other menu to UEFI

 

[Exino_]

on the Advanced Menu, under Windows OS Config, enable Windows 10 WHQL Support

I changed it from legacy to UEFI as the other dude told me and now it just turns on and shut off at the boot picture

 

[Exino_]

I plugged out my 2 hhds and it booted into bios, what do i do from there? And do you have discord, would be alot easier to chat there

 

[Colif]

is the ssd the 256gb drive 0? I was assuming it was the 1tb drive

 

[Exino_]

is the ssd the 256gb drive 0? I was assuming it was the 1tb drive

Yes

 

[Colif]

well, its formatted as MBR so having the boot method as UEFI won't work.

You would be better off reinstalling win 10 and set BIOS to that WHQL menu before installing so it makes it GPT

So it seems my guess was wrong, it could be it boots as UEFI first and then swaps to Legacy
its odd win 10 chose Legacy to install as it prefers GPT if it knows motherboard supports it.

Sorry, I should have noticed C drive was on the MBR disk before I did.

 

[Exino_]

well, its formatted as MBR so having the boot method as UEFI won't work.

You would be better off reinstalling win 10 and set BIOS to that WHQL menu before installing so it makes it GPT

So it seems my guess was wrong, it could be it boots as UEFI first and then swaps to Legacy
its odd win 10 chose Legacy to install as it prefers GPT if it knows motherboard supports it.

Sorry, I should have noticed C drive was on the MBR disk before I did.

But when i tried to install windows yesterday on the ssd it said i couldnt do it since the ssd was GPT but i changed it to MBR and it worked. Do you know any tutorials how to fix this?

 

[Colif]

If you receive the error message: "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style", it’s because your computer is booted in Legacy BIOS mode, but your hard drive is not configured for Legacy BIOS mode.

so swapping BIOS settings will have it boot as UEFI only and you shouldn't get that error

 

[Exino_]

But should i unplug my ssd go into bios and change to UEFI and plug in an usb?

 

[Colif]

you don't need to unplug ssd at all,
you can change to uefi with it plugged
put USB in
boot from USB by going to the save and exit screen, and under Boot Override, pick USB and PC will boot from it - that way you don't need to touch the boot menu (Boot override only works on that boot, it swaps back to normal boot order every other start)

follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/

 

[Exino_]

you don't need to unplug ssd at all,
you can change to uefi with it plugged
put USB in
boot from USB by going to the save and exit screen, and under Boot Override, pick USB and PC will boot from it - that way you don't need to touch the boot menu (Boot override only works on that boot, it swaps back to normal boot order every other start)

follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/

When its done, can i plug in my2 other hdds or do i have to do something in bios first

 

[Colif]

it should be okay, the bios should look at the 1st drive and only boot from it, given that is what it was doing, even though disk 1 has a boot partition it could have used if it had looked.

You might want to wipe the disk 1 at some stage just to remove its boot partition as otherwise if ssd decided not to work, PC could boot from 2nd hdd if its in boot order. That would be very confusing.

 

[Exino_]

it should be okay, the bios should look at the 1st drive and only boot from it, given that is what it was doing, even though disk 1 has a boot partition it could have used if it had looked.

You might want to wipe the disk 1 at some stage just to remove its boot partition as otherwise if ssd decided not to work, PC could boot from 2nd hdd if its in boot order. That would be very confusing.

I already formatted the hdd i had windows on before, is that enough?

 

[Colif]

Yes, if you formatted Disk 1 already, its blank. I was just going from your last screenshots