Question Unable to launch Windows after building new PC

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J3nga

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Jul 1, 2019
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After 6 years I finally decided to re-build my PC. I decided to only keep my GTX 970, my Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD, my 2 HDD's (WD Desktop Black 2TB x 2) aswell as my 850W PSU, which I had confirmed COULD be used in my new PC. All the other parts are completely new directly ordered from the best hardware provider in my country.

For my new PC I went for:
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon, S-1151
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz 16GB (2x8)
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB {FROM OLD PC}
HDD: WD Desktop Black 2TB {FROM OLD PC}
HDD: WD Desktop Black 2TB {FROM OLD PC}
GPU: Gainward Geforce GTX 970 4GB {FROM OLD PC}
PSU: XFX Proseries XXX Edition 850W PSU {FROM OLD PC}

The only problem that occured during the build was that we found out the power cable to the Water Pump to the CPU Cooler was torn. Let me remind you that the CPU Cooler among many other things in this PC came directly from the hardware provider. Thus I filed a complaint, waited 4-5 days until I recieved my new one. After that there were no more problems.

Now, I aleredy had Windows 10 installed on my SSD from my old PC, and went for a normal boot. I went into BIOS to make sure everything was at place, and it was. After I was done with BIOS I saved and exited, the PC booted and it went into the Windows Loading Screen. That's where the problems began.
About 4-5 seconds into the loading screen it would freeze, and nothing more happened. I could wait 10 minutes and it would still be the same. I tried getting into safe mode, and it almost go to the faze, but it freezed again at the "Repairing" loading screen.

I tried to only use one RAM stick, not a difference, I tried using RAID mode (which actually removed the freezing screen), but the loading screen would just keep on loading forever. I've tried everything in my own power. I've also tried consulting the manual for anything that I missed out on. Nothing.

Please help 🙁
 
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Colif said:
What motherboard do you have?

Might need to change some settings in it such as Secure Boot and Fast Boot, both of which will make biosa ignore USB drives at boot
Click to expand...
I'm using the MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon
And I did run with both secure boot and fast boot being disabled..
 
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have you tried boot override?

Put USB in PC
go into bios, on the Save & Exit screen, choose Boot Override
select USB drive from list and PC should restart and boot from USB for this time only

The installed bootable devices will appear on this menu, you can select one of them to be the boot device.
Click to expand...

page 65 of manual

your motherboard also has secure erase

fSecure Erase+
Enables or disables Secure Erase+ function. Secure Erase+ is the best way to effectively wipe all data from a SSD. Please note that data of SSD will be erased after enabling Secure Erase+.
Click to expand...

page 62 of manual
 
Last edited:
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Colif said:
have you tried boot override?

Put USB in PC
go into bios, on the Save & Exit screen, choose Boot Override
select USB drive from list and PC should restart and boot from USB for this time only



page 65 of manual

your motherboard also has secure erase



page 62 of manual
Click to expand...
I was thinking of maybe trying out secure erase. But when I read about it in the bios it said that "Secure Erase makes the SSD speed decrease but increased it's longevity"
 
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J3nga said:
"Secure Erase makes the SSD speed decrease but increased it's longevity"
Click to expand...

that is the opposite of what I get if I search Secure Erase makes the SSD speed decrease in google, many of those show it can increase speed back up to defaults if you been having problems. http://www.ryli.net/ssd-secure-erase-eliminates-the-slowness-of-your-drive/

if you did it all the time, it would be extra wear on ssd, but once isn't going to hurt it.

So I don't think it would be a bad idea, it would stop pc from trying to boot into windows - since its not there anymore
 
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My bad there, I read it wrong in bios. It's the opposite as you say. Nevertheless, I've now tried everything. I tried boot override, I tried using the usb as boot option #1, I tried booting directly from the usb via my manual, and I tried secure erase. My screen is still frozen. I'm not getting into any windows installation or activation screen, it just keeps taking me to the normal windows loading screen and freezes... WHY
 
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Nope it's never gotten past the loading screen, even if I booted in RAID mode it would just be loading forever.

My pc specs are:

Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon, S-1151
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid 120
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz 16GB (2x8)
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB {FROM OLD PC}
HDD: WD Desktop Black 2TB {FROM OLD PC}
HDD: WD Desktop Black 2TB {FROM OLD PC}
GPU: Gainward Geforce GTX 970 4GB {FROM OLD PC}
PSU: XFX Proseries XXX Edition 850W PSU {FROM OLD PC}

I did confirm that the parts from the old PC are compatible with the new parts, and they were.
 
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is ssd only drive currently attached? as per instructions in other thread - https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/unable-to-launch-windows-after-building-new-pc.3495588/ - I just found your other posts and was about to quote your specs.

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the freeze. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors.

its freezing before it even gets to stage of looking at drives, the initial stage is to create a ram drive and run installer from it, and if ram giving it headaches, its not going to get anywhere.
 
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Colif said:
sorry, you need to run it on another PC, it creates a bootable USB that you can run on problem PC and run tests. I am going to merge this thread into the old one since its still same problem
Click to expand...
But if it's the RAM that's the potential problem, isn't it easier to test by testing 1 at a time at each slot (in correct order ofc) until it works?
 
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well, you have 2 sticks, if you swap them out 1 at a time, and it still doesn't work, you haven't really proven its the ram or not.

I am not sure its anything at moment, need to test parts to make sure they all okay. Others in thread may have ideas as well.
 
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Colif said:
well, you have 2 sticks, if you swap them out 1 at a time, and it still doesn't work, you haven't really proven its the ram or not.

I am not sure its anything at moment, need to test parts to make sure they all okay. Others in thread may have ideas as well.
Click to expand...
About the RAM. When I checked it's state in BIOS it did look pretty normal to me. Both RAM sticks were registered, along their capacity (16000MB). The only thing I thought was weird was that the RAM frequency (In BIOS) was only 2133MHz. Does that say anything to you?
 
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I'm going to continue my earlier threads into this one. So anybody who don't seem familiar with the current state of my problem, please check out the bio of those 2 threads, ty.

I'm going to link a Youtube video showing excactly what happens after I turn on my PC. Maybe it will help you guys give me more information as to why the screen freezes:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSX9CDOjWa4



[READ THIS AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO]

At the time I've tried pretty much everything one can think of. I've tried launching the USB Flash Drive w/out the SSD plugged in. I Secure Erased the data on SSD (Incl. Win10), still no difference except that Win10 is gone. I still can't open the Win10 Installation program from windows. I've had help from several experts here on this site, and I've also received help from the company I ordered the computer parts from, but nothing changed. I'm still getting the loading screen freeze.
Please help 🙁
 
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Here, i have 2 suggestions on what to do next:

1) Try booting into GNU/Linux.

To do that, you'll need to create a live bootable USB flash drive with any GNU/Linux distro on it on 2nd PC.
tool to install bootable GNU/Linux on USB flash drive: https://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
Linux Mint distro: https://linuxmint.com/download.php

Download Linux Mint distro and download Universal USB Installer as well. Then, with USB flash drive in the system, run Universal USB Installer, select Linux Mint and follow the onscreen instructions. Once the installation is complete, plug the USB flash drive to your PC and set from your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device, save your changes and reboot booting from the USB flash drive.

Once booting from USB flash drive, you should get options either to install the Linux Mint on your data drive or boot into Linux. Pick booting into Linux to make sure your PC can run OS. Though, do note that when booting into Linux, it takes quite a bit of loading time since entire OS is written in your RAM. After successful boot, you should be seeing the Linux desktop and can use your PC like you'd have OS on SSD/HDD with the exception of slower response time.
However, if the booting into Linux also gets stuck during loading (e.g 15 mins has passed), it's a good sign that your RAM is faulty. Here, i'd be looking towards new RAM.

I also have live bootable USB flash drive with Linux Mint installed on, just in case my Win craps out and i need to use my PC.


2) On hardware standpoint, it is also possible that your SSD is dead. Hence why you can't access it at all.
Here, another drive would be needed to where to install the Win, while completely removing the 850 Evo from the system.

2.1) You can use one of your HDDs as an OS drive, but that means formatting the drive. Loosing all the data on HDD may not be worthwhile.
2.2) Or you can buy a new SSD to where to install the OS,
pcpp: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/4mkj4D,ft8j4D/

  • Once you have the new SSD (or old HDD ready), disconnect all other drives from the system. And by that i mean disconnecting the SATA data cables between drives and MoBo.
  • Connect the new SSD/ old HDD to MoBo.
  • Use the Win 10 installation USB flash drive to install Win on it.
 
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J3nga said:
After building a new pc with many new components (including motherboard and cpu) I was unable to properly open windows on it as the SSD from my previous (which had windows) couldnt read the new components, resulting in the windows loading screen freezing. After alot of help I bought a 16GB USB Flash Drive, downloaded and installed the Windows MediaTool onto it, I still couldnt do anything. I chose the USB Flash Drive as my #1 boot option, I plugged out both SATA and Power connections to my other drives (except SSD) prior to using my USB Flash Drive. I never got into the windows activation screen. It would just take me to the same loading screen and freeze.
Please help..
Click to expand...
You downloaded the MediaCreation tool....THEN what did you do?
Step by step, please.
 
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Aeacus said:
Here, i have 2 suggestions on what to do next:

1) Try booting into GNU/Linux.

To do that, you'll need to create a live bootable USB flash drive with any GNU/Linux distro on it on 2nd PC.
tool to install bootable GNU/Linux on USB flash drive: https://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
Linux Mint distro: https://linuxmint.com/download.php

Download Linux Mint distro and download Universal USB Installer as well. Then, with USB flash drive in the system, run Universal USB Installer, select Linux Mint and follow the onscreen instructions. Once the installation is complete, plug the USB flash drive to your PC and set from your BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB device, save your changes and reboot booting from the USB flash drive.

Once booting from USB flash drive, you should get options either to install the Linux Mint on your data drive or boot into Linux. Pick booting into Linux to make sure your PC can run OS. Though, do note that when booting into Linux, it takes quite a bit of loading time since entire OS is written in your RAM. After successful boot, you should be seeing the Linux desktop and can use your PC like you'd have OS on SSD/HDD with the exception of slower response time.
However, if the booting into Linux also gets stuck during loading (e.g 15 mins has passed), it's a good sign that your RAM is faulty. Here, i'd be looking towards new RAM.

I also have live bootable USB flash drive with Linux Mint installed on, just in case my Win craps out and i need to use my PC.


2) On hardware standpoint, it is also possible that your SSD is dead. Hence why you can't access it at all.
Here, another drive would be needed to where to install the Win, while completely removing the 850 Evo from the system.

2.1) You can use one of your HDDs as an OS drive, but that means formatting the drive. Loosing all the data on HDD may not be worthwhile.
2.2) Or you can buy a new SSD to where to install the OS,
pcpp: https://pcpartpicker.com/products/compare/4mkj4D,ft8j4D/

  • Once you have the new SSD (or old HDD ready), disconnect all other drives from the system. And by that i mean disconnecting the SATA data cables between drives and MoBo.
  • Connect the new SSD/ old HDD to MoBo.
  • Use the Win 10 installation USB flash drive to install Win on it.
Click to expand...
For suggestion #1:
If my PC responds to the Linux OS and succeeds, is there any way inwhich I can change it into Windows, or is that the endpoint?

For suggestion #2: I find it hard to believe that my 2x8GB RAM are dead.. They are part of what most I ordered about a week ago from the BEST supplier in Norway. (komplett.no), but I can understand if the SSD might really be dead (Although I bought that from Komplett.no only 1 year ago). But is it really dead even if the BIOS finds it?
 
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USAFRet said:
From another working PC, you use the MediaCreation Tool to....create the USB media to install with.
The MCT by itself is not a bootable thing.
Click to expand...
USAFRet said:
From another working PC, you use the MediaCreation Tool to....create the USB media to install with.
The MCT by itself is not a bootable thing.
Click to expand...
Yes, and that's what I did. I downloaded it, ran the tool and went through all the steps to install it onto the USB flash drive. I even doublechecked tutorials and they all matched.
 
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J3nga said:
For suggestion #1:
If my PC responds to the Linux OS and succeeds, is there any way inwhich I can change it into Windows, or is that the endpoint?
Click to expand...
Well, you can use the GNU/Linux live bootable USB flash drive to install Linux on your SSD as well but that's it. But in all intents and purposes, when your PC can run GNU/Linux, it should be able to run Win as well. Though, on extremely rare occasions, there are instances where PC has run off from GNU/Linux without issues but doesn't work with Windows at all. In those cases, the Windows itself has been culprit (e.g corrupt OS or corrupt installation media).

J3nga said:
For suggestion #2: I find it hard to believe that my 2x8GB RAM are dead.. They are part of what most I ordered about a week ago from the BEST supplier in Norway. (komplett.no), but I can understand if the SSD might really be dead (Although I bought that from Komplett.no only 1 year ago). But is it really dead even if the BIOS finds it?
Click to expand...
All hardware: CPU, MoBo, SSD, HDD, case fans, LED stips etc can die at any given point of time without any apparent reason (e.g internal failure which you don't see nor hear). Due to that, components have warranty on them which you can use to replace the dead component out within given time period. If the hardware never dies, there won't be any need for the warranty.

Also, just because BIOS detects it doesn't mean the drive is in 100% health. Many drives at their end of life end up in a spot where BIOS and OS detects the drive but can't access it nor read/use any data from it.
 
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Aeacus said:
Well, you can use the GNU/Linux live bootable USB flash drive to install Linux on your SSD as well but that's it. But in all intents and purposes, when your PC can run GNU/Linux, it should be able to run Win as well. Though, on extremely rare occasions, there are instances where PC has run off from GNU/Linux without issues but doesn't work with Windows at all. In those cases, the Windows itself has been culprit (e.g corrupt OS or corrupt installation media).


All hardware: CPU, MoBo, SSD, HDD, case fans, LED stips etc can die at any given point of time without any apparent reason (e.g internal failure which you don't see nor hear). Due to that, components have warranty on them which you can use to replace the dead component out within given time period. If the hardware never dies, there won't be any need for the warranty.

Also, just because BIOS detects it doesn't mean the drive is in 100% health. Many drives at their end of life end up in a spot where BIOS and OS detects the drive but can't access it nor read/use any data from it.
Click to expand...
For your 2nd answer:
Ok, I can actually believe that and move forward with it. I think the best thing for me to do here is to send my PC to the hardware provider (Komplett.no) and have them repair it. It’s gonna cost, but it will be alot cheaper as 80% of the pc has warranty om them from Komplett that’s still active. Thus they can replace those parts which have died.
 
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Sending the PC to PC repair store is good option if you don't have much knowledge about PC repair/troubleshoot. Though, it does cost you more than doing it by yourself.

Life lesson: next time you upgrade your PC (e.g new CPU-MoBo-RAM combo), do not re-use your old OS. Always make a clean Win install.
 
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