Windows 10. Frozen on boot circle animation

[mikk809h]

Hello

I've recently got my hands on a new mini-pc, that it'd use for a personal home server.
I got everything working and connected my hdd to the sata cable and booted the computer from a Boot USB drive (Windows 10 Pro installation media)

I installed windows 10 onto the harddrive and the display told me it was going to restart to finish the installation. Now whenever the computer does not boot from the USB, it freezes during the blue circle animation. I've let it be for approx 2 hours in total, without anything happening, so i thought of bringing my problem up on this forum.

Does anybody know what might be causing the following issues?
I have only connected the following external periphs:
wireless keyboard+mouse
USB Flash drive


Thanks in advance!

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Try booting up with the pen drive pulled out.

 

[1LiquidPC]

Try booting again like mentioned above w/o the USB drive installed. Likely Windows just needs some basic drivers installed from the first few updates to work this out.

 

[mikk809h]

I tried booting without the usb connected twice. Still not working

 

[1LiquidPC]

What are the specs for the PC? Any chance it's a UEFI boot issue, or CSM needing enabled?

 

[mikk809h]

What are the specs for the PC? Any chance it's a UEFI boot issue, or CSM needing enabled?

Well i am not sure wether its an UEFI issue, because windows 7 Does work on the computer. I think i'll have to stay with Windows 7 .

 

[1LiquidPC]

OK. It does work w/ 7 then. If in the UEFI, you would likely want CSM enabled. Did you install 10 using standard MBR partitioning, or UEFI boot/install?

 

[mikk809h]

OK. It does work w/ 7 then. If in the UEFI, you would likely want CSM enabled. Did you install 10 using standard MBR partitioning, or UEFI boot/install?

Well i used the Windows Media Creation tool, to create the bootable USB drive.
I then installed Windows 10 by using the partitioner (Removed all partitions and installed on a fresh one)

 

[1LiquidPC]

OK, when booting, did you press a button during boot, or boot to the USB drive/installer from within the BIOS? Usually, w/ modern systems when booting in BIOS, you can select either regular USB boot or UEFI boot for the Windows installation. If you installed using the "UEFI" method, you would want to check to be sure CSM is enabled in your UEFI. My X79 motherboard from 2011 has this option, so it's likely you do as well. If you installed the standard method, this shouldn't be a setting you would need to adjust. The main reason I'm asking is to make sure you system isn't trying a "full" UEFI boot that your system may not support. This is unlikely the cause though, just something to check. Also, did you update the BIOS/UEFI to the latest version before installing Windows 10?

 

[mikk809h]

OK, when booting, did you press a button during boot, or boot to the USB drive/installer from within the BIOS? Usually, w/ modern systems when booting in BIOS, you can select either regular USB boot or UEFI boot for the Windows installation. If you installed using the "UEFI" method, you would want to check to be sure CSM is enabled in your UEFI. My X79 motherboard from 2011 has this option, so it's likely you do as well. If you installed the standard method, this shouldn't be a setting you would need to adjust. The main reason I'm asking is to make sure you system isn't trying a "full" UEFI boot that your system may not support. This is unlikely the cause though, just something to check. Also, did you update the BIOS/UEFI to the latest version before installing Windows 10?

Hmm.. No, i did not update it myself. Might have to look into that. Else i guess i'd stick with Win7 and let it run like it does now. (The computer itself works with the thing i want it to achieve, so i guess i don't "need" windows 10)

But thanks for your help

 

[bellanza]

I'm having the exact same problem. Did this ever get solved? Is there a setting I need to change in the BIOS?

Installed Win10 off a MBR partitioned USB using Rufus.

 

[mikk809h]

I'm having the exact same problem. Did this ever get solved? Is there a setting I need to change in the BIOS?

Installed Win10 off a MBR partitioned USB using Rufus.

Well.. I never "really" solved it. Instead i kinda "gave up"... I installed windows 7 Pro and all that works now... I even get the "Upgrade to windows 10" notification every now and then... (Maybe that's gonna work)

So no. I haven't solved this.
I did not change anything specific in BIOS other than the boot order (to boot from USB before HDD)

 

[1LiquidPC]

Try disabling Secure Boot, perhaps?

 

[bellanza]

From what I understand, my motherboard is old enough that it doesn't come with Secure Boot either as an option or enabled by default. (I've checked, it's definitely compatible with Windows 10.) I was running Windows 7 off it before, so if it *is* an option and I've just missed it, then it should already be disabled, right?

Either way, it seems to be booting off the external USB just fine.

EDIT: Hah. I'm an idiot. Yes, it has Secure Boot. It was enabled, just disabled it then. No dice.

 

[1LiquidPC]

I'm guessing you have latest BIOS installed. CSM enabled?

 

[ibjamie92]

windows 10 installer is notoriously bad, took me about 20 attempts for it to install

 

[bellanza]

Update: ended up being a hardware (faulty motherboard, no surprises there) issue. (Also, latest BIOS version shouldn't have impacted on the install...) It wouldn't boot Windows 8, 8.1 or 10, replaced the motherboard and now it works perfectly. Sorry that I can't be of any more help, but that was all there was to it, sadly.