Question Windows Install won’t start when SSD’s plugged in, but will for HDD

[ZOMG_Logan]

Hello everyone,

This is easily the weirdest issue I have ever had with my computer. No amount of troubleshooting has helped me whatsoever.

Essentially, I got a BSOD the other day randomly for DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL for a WPPRecorder.sys. After that happened, my OS refused to boot, and it acted as if I didn’t have an OS installed on my 1st of 2 SSDs. I tried reinstalling windows, only to find out that the installation won’t boot (and I made many USBs with up to date stuff from windows). I will just get never ending spinning dots. I figured it was probably just a dead drive. I removed it, and just kept my 2nd SSD and HDD. Same thing... and when I just had my HDD by itself the installation would open like normal.

The problem is that I do not want to format that HDD since it has a lot of valuable information on it, and the idea of putting windows back on a mechanical drive sounds horrible. I looked around the bios and I couldn’t find anything that would affect SSDs working. SATA power and data cables seem fine. The BIOS actually does recognize the brand of the SSDs too. I ended up putting the SSDs in an enclosure on a spare chrome book I have, and they seemed to be fine. I formatted one of them to see if that would help bring it to the windows installation screen but that did nothing. I’m really at a loss here, since the SSDs aren’t broken.

Here are my specs:
CPU:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X - 8 Core 16 Threads 4.4GHz

Motherboard:
Gigabyte B450M DS3H-CF

RAM:
Crucial Ballistix 3200MHz DDR4 8gb (x2)

GPU:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 Mini ITX

Storage:
HP SSD S700 500gb (now formatted)
SanDisk SDSSDA240G SSD 256gb (OS is installed here)
WD WDC WD40EZRZ HDD 4TB

Power Supply:
EVGA 600BQ 80+ Bronze 600W Semi-Modular

 

[ZOMG_Logan]

Just to verify, these are all SATA III drives, correct? No M.2 on the SSD?

Everything is SATA 3

Try following the instructions here using a cd or bootable flash drive.

How to Repair Windows Bootloader Problems (If Your Computer Won’t Start)

If your Windows PC is throwing an error message at you before it even begins to load Windows, it’s possible that the boot sector on your system partition is damaged, corrupted, or has missing files. Here’s how to troubleshoot those problems.

www.howtogeek.com

Unfortunately I can’t do a lot of these options with the SSD plugged in since the installation media doesn’t boot up

Your ssd is dead same thing happened to me I had to get it replaced...

The SSDs work in an enclosure on a separate computer though.

 

[Inductor]

Everything is SATA 3


Unfortunately I can’t do a lot of these options with the SSD plugged in since the installation media doesn’t boot up


The SSDs work in an enclosure on a separate computer though.

If that's the case, your only alternative seems to DBAN the SSD. But since DBAN doesn't support SSD, you need a different program. Your other files are on the HD, so that's fine.

 

[idkwhattonamethisacc]

Your ssd is dead same thing happened to me I had to get it replaced...

How can 2 ssds die at the same time????? That would be pretty unlucky but the only definitive way to test is if you ask your friend that does have a desktop a favor to unplug all of their existing storage and change it with your storage, that will rule out possibility for crapped out mobo, but that is IF you have a friend that has a desktop, literally the only help i can give since im only experienced in lga 775 and junk hardware and have decided to stop crap shooting wayyy off on my answers

 

[USAFRet]

How can 2 ssds die at the same time?????

Using the wrong modular cable from a PSU
Using a junk PSU

But that does not seem to be the case here, because the drives apparently function in an external enclosure.
Leading to a dead motherboard.

 

[idkwhattonamethisacc]

Using the wrong modular cable from a PSU
Using a junk PSU

But that does not seem to be the case here, because the drives apparently function in an external enclosure.
Leading to a dead motherboard.

The only way to test that is to get another mobo, if you dont have a friend just buy a dirt cheap lga 775 mobo preferably g41, dirt cheap lga 775 cpu like e5xxx or e2xxx series pentium cpus, and 1 gig or 2 gig ddr2, hook it up to your current psu (if ur too lazy just buy an oem 500w psu, will do the job just fine and can be found for 5-10$, buy the ones with small fans since those are guaranteed to not explode), just buy a cheap used lga 775 cooler for 1-3$, then try booting windows, if it works then your current mobo is a dud, if it doesnt it points to your ssds being faulty aka crapped out l, you also have to buy this locally so if you have a popular eshop app in your area try searching for those parts there instead of aliexpress or something, much quicker and cheaper buying local when it comes to these things

 

[idkwhattonamethisacc]

Using the wrong modular cable from a PSU
Using a junk PSU

But that does not seem to be the case here, because the drives apparently function in an external enclosure.
Leading to a dead motherboard.

The only reason to blame the psu is if it were a chinese psu, ive had one explode on me and i wasted 30$ for that peice of crap, i now have a 3$ 500w oem psu that has some pretty extreme voltage irregularities, eg : i set cpu vcore to 1.59 it gives the cpu 1.8v, BUT it didnt explode and it didnt destroy my harddrives, it will work for ocing as ive oced a p4 631 to 5.656 using this psu so NO an oem model psu that was once in an oem system will NOT destroy the rest of your pc by exploding, but it will kill some components if you arent careful with your settings in the bios, so problably not junk psu but wrong modular psu cable is plausable

 

[ZOMG_Logan]

After some further troubleshooting, I was able to get a bit father. I used Gparted on another computer and formatted one of the SSDs. Instead of making it NTFS, I just did unallocated space. Now I am able to get into the windows installation fine and the SSD shows up. The problem is, when I format it there (to what I assume is NTFS but it doesn’t say) it hangs again. It doesn’t freeze, I just get an hourglass and I don’t think it’s actually doing anything.

Now I’m thinking my computer just doesn’t like NTFS drives. Any ideas?

 

[ZOMG_Logan]

Oh wait, right after I posted that last update I got an error. “We couldn’t create a new partition. [Error: 0xeb802160]

Of course I can make partitions fine on the other computer using this drive, it just won’t load up on the computer I need it to. I suppose it’s still looking like a motherboard thing. I believe my HDD might be formatted as exfat, though I’m not 100% sure

 

[ZOMG_Logan]

Here’s an update:

I sent in my motherboard weeks ago for an RMA with very detailed notes about what’s going on. Today, I get an update that says “No trouble found after tests with multiple configurations.”

I sincerely don’t believe they went far enough into the troubleshooting to see the issue. All these drives have been confirmed to work fine on other machines, and the cables all work fine as well, only leaving the motherboard. Well, I guess I’ll try it again once I receive it but I’m not hopeful. I will never, ever buy another gigabyte product again if this issue still persists.

 

[ZOMG_Logan]

Well, I got a new motherboard, same issue. I got a new NVME M.2 SSD drive, same issue. All I can think now is that it’s a fluke CPU issue. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on Gigabyte now. Any ideas?

Here’s an update:

I sent in my motherboard weeks ago for an RMA with very detailed notes about what’s going on. Today, I get an update that says “No trouble found after tests with multiple configurations.”

I sincerely don’t believe they went far enough into the troubleshooting to see the issue. All these drives have been confirmed to work fine on other machines, and the cables all work fine as well, only leaving the motherboard. Well, I guess I’ll try it again once I receive it but I’m not hopeful. I will never, ever buy another gigabyte product again if this issue still persists.

 

[ZOMG_Logan]

Here is an update, if by chance anyone has his issue and comes across it on a google search or something. I replaced the CPU with the same model and everything worked fine. It was just a defective CPU in a very weird way. It would have ran Linux just fine, but not windows since it requires NTFS