Windows 10 boot/startup issues

[geoffmorg]

I have a home brew desktop based on a Gigabyte motherboard. It originally upgraded to Windows 10 fine. I then started having some problems and realised it wasn't at the newest version, and the upgrade was failing. I had the motherboard processor replaced under warranty but the issues continued. It would, however, work if I removed one memory stick. I've spent many hours working on this and couldn't begin to describe everything I've tried, as I can't even remember it all!!

So when I got fed up with this I did a fresh install to a clean disk which worked fine for a bit but is now failing in exactly the same way. I now understand it a teeny bit better It reaches the BIOS splash screen with the single beep but then that screen goes and is replaced by a black screen with underscore cursor. This goes nowhere.

What I have now discovered is that if I use F12 during startup to select the boot media I can boot from DVD or USB media (I tried restoring Macrium images), and if I choose Windows Boot Manager it always works. But if I let it default to the Samsung PRO SSD (C drive I get the blank screen.

So what I don't know is what is different between Windows Boot manager and allowing default. They both (used to) start up from the same disk, but default doesn't now.

Just for info, other disks in the machine will undoubtedly have been system disks at some point in their life but none has an operating system on it. The system is not dual boot but I have just enabled the start up display menu, as I couldn't safe boot in any way when testing. During original testing I stripped everything except essentials - including graphics card, all USB devices and all unnecessary disks and it didn't change the symptoms.

Sorry that's all a bit long winded, I hope it's clear though. Help!!

 

[CelicaGT]

Try disabling Fast Startup, this sounds similar to an issue I had on an older laptop upgraded to 10. It's under control panel>Power Options>Choose what power buttons do>Change settings that are currently unavailable....should be there. If you have hibernate disabled so is fast startup and thus the option will not appear.

 

[smorizio]

with windows 10 and newer mb. newer mb now have two bios efi and the old legacy bios. intel also added secutry to mb and boot so people could not use a usb stick or another dr and copy data off (secure boot). with windows 10 and newer bios with efi on it looking for the restore partion that has the windows boot files. make sure the boot ssd has that folder on it. also make sure under boot under hard drive the ssd is the first boot device. also turn on legacy boot and see if it boot from ssd. also with newer mb make sure under priamny display you set it from auto to peg/pci if your using a video card. if not the mb can flop from one video card to onboard video. if your not using onboard video turn it off.

 

[geoffmorg]

Thanks for the suggestions, will have a session later or tomorrow to try them out. But do please remember that this all worked fine for weeks then suddenly stopped.

I can tell you that the c:\ drive has a folder called boot which only has Macrium files in it. When I re-installed Windows 10 I took an image once I'd loaded my apps and the boot folder does not have anything else in it in that image either. (Funnily enough wen I was working on this yesterday I was trying to use BCDEDIT to update the boot file but it wouldn't work and I think that's because it looks for files there). just for interest, here is the output from BCDEDIT

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
path \EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-GB
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {e2544fbe-52f4-11e5-aa33-a7b3b6f6d5ff}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
displaybootmenu Yes

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 10
locale en-GB
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {e2544fc0-52f4-11e5-aa33-a7b3b6f6d5ff}
recoveryenabled Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \WINDOWS
resumeobject {e2544fbe-52f4-11e5-aa33-a7b3b6f6d5ff}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

UPDATE: disabling fast start made no difference, but thanks anyway :-(

 

[geoffmorg]

I think we've cracked it. Disabling fast start made no difference, nor did disabling onboard video.

However Smorizio pointed me at the BIOS the boot setting, which has 3 options:

UEFI only
UEFI and Legacy
Legacy only

If I set it to UEFI only it is working (2 out of 2 times). Any other setting and it doesn't work, unless I chose Windows Boot manager from the boot options.

btw the SSD was the first device.

Thinking back that this worked for weeks and weeks then stopped working - I've no idea why this setting would have changed mid-flight, it's not as though the CMOS battery would be low. Or maybe something else changed which has stopped legacy boot. However I am now very happy. Thanks for the tips and advice.

 

[CelicaGT]

Good show, glad you got it figured out