[SOLVED] Windows 11 Boot Loop

[RBB24]

Hello, fellow tech peeps, I need some advice!

A few days ago, I decided to finally upgrade my pc from Windows 10 to 11, thinking to myself ‘ah we’re good, nothing bad should happen.’ Boy, was I Wrong. The first day after upgrading, it worked as normal. The day after that, it asked me to update, which I did. But, now my computer’s stuck in a perpetual MOBO logo screen loop. It’ll start, get into the logo screen where you can choose to go into the BIOS, get after that which is the MOBO logo screen between the BIOS setup and the Windows Splash screen, and promptly crashes and restarts. While I’m aware that it could’ve something up with the system, I’m fairly certain that it’s something that happened with the update. I really hope y’all can help!

MOBO Gigabyte Aorus Gaming Wifi Z370
CPU Intel i7-8086K
GPU MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Dual
RAM 4x16GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro White 3200
Boot Drive Samsung 860 Qvo 2TB SSD
Secondary Storage SanDisk SSD Plus 1TB
Cooling 3 Corsair RGB LL-120 fans and Corsair H100i with its two stock fans
Power Supply Seasonic (can’t remember the exact product but I know I made sure the wattage on it worked with the system, and it’s gold+)

couple notes: I’ve had this system for a few years now, and the only other issue I’ve had is another Windows related issue. I previously only had the 1TB drive in the system, and that was my boot drive. An update basically messed with my system, then, too. I figured a solution I’d check out was a secondary drive (needed one anyways for space) so I bought the Samsung 2TB and then put a clean install of windows 10 on that, and system worked beautifully. I suppose what happened is the update corrupted my original Windows Install on the 1TB, which is why I believe that’s what’s happening here, too.

Another note: I do have a windows 10 Boot USB Flash Drive. I’ve been able to successfully boot into it, but there isn’t a reset mode, for whatever reason it’s not letting me use my external HDD for restoration, and everything else I’ve tried hasn’t worked. Odd thing is when I go into command prompt, it shows the directory as X:, not C:.

Last note: I’ve taken out each of my RAM sticks and tried putting each in by themselves to see if it’s a RAM issue, but it doesn’t seem to be. RAM also seems to be registering just fine in Easy Mode.

 

[Colif]

when you boot off a USB drive, it creates a ram drive that is labelled X:

what i would do is copy anything off C you want to keep

• on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
• choose troubleshoot
• choose advanced
• choose command prompt
• type notepad and press enter
• in notepad, select file>open
• Use file explorer to copy any files you need to save to USB or 2nd ssd

once you copied everything you want to save, I would clean install 11 and see if the problem was caused by the update + fact you upgraded from 10. Clean install might make it faster too

Only have the ssd you want win 11 in the PC or at least, attached to data when you install 11. Can reattach it once it all works again. Makes sure boot partition is on right drive, windows likes to share itself around otherwise. Any blank space, it will use.

although guide is for 10, a lot of it is still the same now - follow this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-do-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10.3170366/

 

[RBB24]

A weird situation has occurred. Today when starting up the computer, I was pressing F12 to get into my boot drive selection. This is with the 2 SSD's installed and the USB stick installed. I hadn't taken any of your steps yet. When I went into the Boot Drive selection screen, I saw all of the options that I just listed, but there was also an additional "Drive" there that was listed, which had a blank name and was in the middle of all the other drives. I've not seen this blank one there before and was intrigued, so I clicked on it. Then the MOBO screen changed to Gigabyte doing a disk check on my drives, and then weirdly I was able to get back into my computer. Thinking it was a fluke, I restarted my computer to see if it would boot up as normal, but it looped again. I went into my BIOS setup screen, the in-depth one where you can overclock (different than the previous quick boot select screen) because I wanted to see if that strange blank drive was there, too, but it wasn't. So, when I restarted once more, I made sure to do that original process and get back into Windows so that I can type this message. It's all a bit odd.

 

[Colif]

So you need to press F12 every startup to get into windows?

if you only have one install on the PC, you should only see one ssd showing in the boot menu, and the USB.

is the old windows drive still in PC with the new 2tb boot drive? if so, bios can still see it. That might be part of your problem.

in windows, can you right click start
choose disk management
take a screen shot showing all the sections and all details of the drives in PC.