[SOLVED] Old guy needs help with boot problem.

[RockyCoast]

Hello, I'm not new to computers - my first one was a Kaypro in 1983 - but I'm not an expert by any means. I built my current computer about five years ago (Thanks PCPartPicker.com). I started with a Samsung 250GB SSD for boot drive plus a Samsung 1TB for everything else. Recently I swapped in a Crucial 2TB SSD for the boot drive and used the included Acronis program to do the cloning. THEN Windows automatically updated itself. Here's where trouble starts. What I have now:

Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme6 (CPUSocket)
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K @ 3.50GHz 47 °C
Haswell 22nm Technology
RAM: 32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
STORAGE: 1863GB Crucial CT2000MX500SSD1 (SATA (SSD))
232GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB (SATA (SSD)) 30 °C
931GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB (SATA (SSD)) 29 °C
GRAPHICS: S23C350 (1920x1080@59Hz)
4096MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 380 Series (Gigabyte)
PSU: Corsair 1000W 80+ Gold ATX12V fully modular
SYSTEM: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

So now when I boot I get the black screen with choices - F2, F11, TAB... If I wait a few seconds, it becomes black screen with "Preparing Automatic Repair". Then I get a blue screen with choices: Continue; Turn off your PC; (User Device?); Troubleshoot. I select Continue ("Exit and continue to Windows 10"). That takes me to the FIRST screen.

This time I press F11 to get a Boot Menu. At the top of the list (which I chose in the BIOS) is "Windows Boot Manager"; next on the list is the new Crucial SSD. If I choose THAT, I get: "Reboot and select proper boot device". So I re-boot.

This time I press F11 to get a Boot Menu and select "Windows Boot Manager" and it boots up.

I've tried dozens of times to re-order stuff in the BIOS and nothing has worked to get the dang thing to boot from the new SSD. I've tried almost all the options on the black and blue screens. What am I missing?

 

[Ralston18]

Physical double check all drive data and power connections to ensure that all are fully and firmly connected.

Because the system does finally boot up, use Reliability History/Manager and Event Viewer to look for error codes and warnings with respect to the preceding boot failures. May or may not make the logs but no harm in looking.

However, this may be a clue as to what happened : "THEN Windows automatically updated itself."

Perhaps something was buggy or corrupted.

Once successfully booted:

My first thought would be to run "sfc /scannow" (without quotes) via the command prompt.

Then, second, just run the built-in Windows troubleshooters.

May find and possibly fix the problem.

 

[Aeacus]

While i'm no expert in software issues, especially with Win 10 (i'm using Win 7), i know thing or two and i can tell one possible reason what's wrong with your PC.

When you cloned your OS to Crucial SSD, the Boot Manager remained on your old OS drive, hence why you can't boot directly from the Crucial SSD. Some disk cloning programs doesn't clone the boot manager and it becomes relevant once the attempt to boot from said drive comes to play.
I've used Acronis True Image and Samsung Data Migration Software to successfully clone the OS, including the boot manager.

Here, one way to create the boot manager to your Crucial SSD is to:

1. disconnect all other drives from MoBo*
2. reinstall the Win again on your Crucial drive
3. once you have running OS on your Crucial drive and can boot from it, reconnect your other drives to MoBo

* Without any other drives connected, Win install doesn't have any other choice than creating the boot manager to the very single drive the OS ends up.

Though, i don't have enough knowledge about Win 10 to say if it's possible for you to create the boot manager on your Crucial SSD without reinstalling OS. Our resident expert on Win 10, @Colif , can answer that.

 

[Colif]

windows boot manager in bios is the right choice for being first. that is provided it boots from 2tb ssd
windows is working. its just not booting right?

in windows, can you right click start
choose disk management
expand that window to show all info, take a screenshot and upload to an image sharing website, and share link here - that will let us see what you have before we go reinstalling win 10.

normally after you clone the drive, you remove old one and make sure it boots.

Given it needs Windows Boot Manager to boot, your SSD is formatted as GPT. As of 2009, almost all motherboards now have UEFI bios, and Win 10, if it recognises bios supports UEFI, will format the drive as GPT. Given the Boot sector on GPT drives can be anywhere, on any drive, even on network drives, you need to use WBM as it contains the location of the boot partition.

PC should auto boot from it though

What is the setting for CSM on the boot tab in bios?

 

[RockyCoast]

WOW! What a great idea. I disconnected the other drives and booted; got the black screen; pressed F2 and got the Boot Order screen; didn't change anything; "Save and Exit" - booted right up. So, of course, I turned everything off and tried it a couple more times and it booted with no problems. THANKS!

 

[Infydel]

Press F2 for bios, then last option ( load optimize default) press save and exit.

If this dont help, tray boot up instalatio usb/cd)/dvd win10 and press repair, in second menu press boot up problems - press enter (in black screen put out win instalation device).

Try with cleaning ram and graphic golden contact.