Question Windows will not boot

[hondoman]

Right then,

About two weeks ago I bought a new Motherboard, CPU, Fan, memory and a WLAN PCIe card. These were to be placed into a four years old PC. The power supply and SSDs were replaced about two years ago.

All went well except for the WLAN card. It simply wouldn't work. Finally got into my router, made a few small changes and it worked. Well, for about an hour or so. I was streaming a movie and the screen froze. I rebooted and the troubles began.

Rebooting would only give me the black screen of death.

Looked at the BIOS and all was well. I made a recovery USB and changed the BIOS to boot from it. No joy.

Last night I tried again. I was able to get to the screen with the Windows logo and spinning wheel and then a blue screen. On the blue screen there was error message 0xc0000102 and it mentioned something about missing recovery tools. The only options were to Enter or F8. I tried those several times, but it would simply return to the same blue screen.

I tried again today, but now only the Windows logo appears on a black screen with no spinning wheel.

I'm not sure what to do at this point. The only Windows CDs I have are ME and XP (why the F do I still even have those???)

I do have another working PC, so I am able to access the Internet, download, create USB files etc.

Could there be a problem with the recovery USB? The only files are Reagent, a Sources folder and an EFI folder. I did use Diskpart prior to make it active, set a partition and FAT32.

Ideas on what to do?

Cheers!

 

[jay32267]

I don't see where you mention you did a clean Windows install.

When you replace the motherboard you need to do a clean Windows install.

Did you?

If not.

Do one.

 

[hondoman]

I don't see where you mention you did a clean Windows install.

When you replace the motherboard you need to do a clean Windows install.

Did you?

If not.

Do one.

Thanks for answering. No I didn't do one. Ok, I'll do it, but how? I don't have a Windows 10 CD.

 

[jay32267]

Here.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-do-clean-installation-windows-10,36160.html

Your current version of Windows is expecting your old hardware and this can cause problems like you are seeing.

 

[hondoman]

Here.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-do-clean-installation-windows-10,36160.html

Your current version of Windows is expecting your old hardware and this can cause problems like you are seeing.

Jay, that does make sense. I can well imagine the conflicts it causes to not do so.

I followed the link, read the page and followed the embedded link to Windows. Create Windows 10 Installation Media. It states, 'To get started, you will first need to have a license to install Windows 10.' Aye, my license is inside that machine. I hope this will work. I'll give it a wee go.

 

[jay32267]

Jay, that does make sense. I can well imagine the conflicts it causes to not do so.

I followed the link, read the page and followed the embedded link to Windows. Create Windows 10 Installation Media. It states, 'To get started, you will first need to have a license to install Windows 10.' Aye, my license is inside that machine. I hope this will work. I'll give it a wee go.

I'm not real informed as far as Windows licenses....but I think this may work.
If you run into trouble as far as the licensing....maybe create another post...as I'm not good with the licensing aspect....but I think it might work.

 

[hondoman]

I'm not real informed as far as Windows licenses....but I think this may work.
If you run into trouble as far as the licensing....maybe create another post...as I'm not good with the licensing aspect....but I think it might work.

I appreciate your advise. Cheers!

 

[jay32267]

I appreciate your advise. Cheers!

You're welcome and good luck.
This is fairly common that people don't do a clean install (because they've heard you don't have to...or for whatever reason...lazy....)....and the problems they have are pretty much the problems you have.

 

[Ineedanewusername241]

Jay, that does make sense. I can well imagine the conflicts it causes to not do so.

I followed the link, read the page and followed the embedded link to Windows. Create Windows 10 Installation Media. It states, 'To get started, you will first need to have a license to install Windows 10.' Aye, my license is inside that machine. I hope this will work. I'll give it a wee go.

Your Windows VLK shouldn't be an issue, during Win10 setup it will ask for it but, if I'm not mistaken, you should be provided with an option to "Skip Activation"...Windows will give you a triall icense good for 30 days which should give you time to retrieve your License Key, though it sounds like your key is in the Windows 10 installation you need to obliterate to get your system running.
You can use your other computer to create USB installation media, all that is required is a Windows image and Rufus. If you need a Windows Image you can use the Windows ISO Image Download Tool

 

[hondoman]

Your Windows VLK shouldn't be an issue, during Win10 setup it will ask for it but, if I'm not mistaken, you should be provided with an option to "Skip Activation"...Windows will give you a triall icense good for 30 days which should give you time to retrieve your License Key, though it sounds like your key is in the Windows 10 installation you need to obliterate to get your system running.
You can use your other computer to create USB installation media, all that is required is a Windows image and Rufus. If you need a Windows Image you can use the Windows ISO Image Download Tool

For reasons I don't fully understand, the license is in connection with the mainboard, so when that is replaced... When Windows is installed (OEM) from a shop or the like, there is no means to retrieve it in a situation like mine. New SSD or HDD, CPU, are fine. The motherboard is the issue. Had I purchased Windows separately from a retail store, then I could use it again. Sounds like rubbish, but it's MS' rules.

And... it's what I had to do last night. The license key was invalid, so a new one was purchased.

 

[Colif]

who told you that, as I have helped "Lots" of people move licences, including to completely new PC. For the last 5 years.

 

[hondoman]

This has gone from bad to worse....

In attempts to boot the system, I have tried both a Recovery USB Drive and the Media Creation Tool, also USB. Neither is working and I've no clue as to why.

On boot, the BIOS splash screen appears. With the Media Creation Tool, I'll get a blinking cursor, then the Windows logo appears and the spinning wheel of dots appears, spins once and freezes.

With the Recovery Drive, after the BIOS splash, the Windows logo appears, no spinning wheel of dots, then comes the black screen of death.

I removed the WLAN PCIe card thinking that might be the issue. Nothing changed.

I've tried different USB ports for the drives and moved around the mouse and keyboard USBs. Again, nothing.

Should I take the SSDs out and format them on another PC? Would that help?

Not sure what to do now.

Cheers!

MoBo: MSI A320M-A PRO MAX
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3200G, 4x 3600 MHz
RAM: 8 GB DDR4-RAM, 3000 MHz, G.SKILL Aegis
WLAN: WLAN PCIe Karte 867 MBit/s (300 MBit/s @ 2,4 GHz) (Currently removed)
Radeon Vega 8 OnChip