Herbie

So, this system is custom built by a friend from quite some time ago, with few pieces changed over the course of the years. I have been using this build with Win XP, 7 and now 10. All running on my HDD. And as I said, I managed to install the Win 10 on the SSD on the first try. Had it running normally, browsing, installing, playing games, etcetera. Until restarting the PC and finding about that Pri Master Hard Drive SMART Command Failed message - which I could have possibly solved / bypassed by switching from IDE to AHCI, but too late for that now. Tried formatting and creating partition on the USB Flash Drive two more times, still no luck. Can't get it to boot. Windows logo flashes once for a second and then it goes back to blinking underscore. It is really driving me crazy.

So, basically my problem right now would be - not being able to boot USB Flash Drive to install fresh Windows 10 on SSD. As the switch from IDE to AHCI bypassed the S.M.A.R.T. error. Therefore, if I wouldn't have formatted the SSD, but switched from IDE to AHCI first, I wouldn't be here. I guess.

Hello everyone, I did encounter a problem this morning, which I tried to solve for like six hours, without any luck. Therefore I am coming to you, more experienced users, tech-guys or gals. I am running a quite old desktop with even older HDD. I recently got myself an SSD from a friend. He formatted it before getting it to me. When I got it, I downloaded the Windows Media Creation Tool first to prepare the USB Flash Drive. Then I unplugged the old HDD and plugged in the SSD along with USB Flash Drive. Went to BIOS to set the Boot order. I encountered an obstacle called "Pri Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Command Failed". I thought, that it might have something to do with the fact that the SSD is formatted and the BIOS is trying to boot from it. Anyways, I managed to boot the USB Flash Drive and successfully install Windows 10. I went to plug in my old HDD to copy few files. Everything went well for the evening and night, installed few programs, played a game or two (from the HDD tho). Then, in the morning, when I needed to restart the PC, it didn't boot back. It got stuck after the DrMOS screen, telling me the same error again - "Pri Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Command Failed". I managed to bypass it once more to copy some of my files back to HDD. Then, went to use the old HDD again, while being able to access the SSD files just fine. I didn't really find any good solutions by googling. Checked the SSD's state in the windows interface and the results were good. So I prepared the USB Flash Drive again to format the SSD once again and do a fresh install. But the Flash Drive refused to Boot, several times. Went through blinking underscore to the Windows Logo for a second and then back to the blinking underscore (booting sequence?) again for infinity. Booted my HDD, formatted the SSD from windows interface and then unplugged the HDD again. Left only SSD and Flash Drive plugged in and tried to boot from USB again just to encounter the same issue with blinking underscore. While still getting the "Pri Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Command Failed" message before booting from anything. When I switched from IDE to AHCI in BIOS, the message did not pop up again, yet it didn't fix the boot from USB issue. My specifications: OS: Windows 10 Pro 64bit CPU: Intel Core i7 930 @ 2.80GHz RAM: 16,0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 534MHz (7-7-7-18) Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro-E (MS-7522) Graphics: 4096MB ATI AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (MSI) SSD: Kingston Now UV400 - 240GB I apologize for such a long text, but it is driving me crazy already as I have spent hours on it without any results. I thank everyone for their time and effort in advance. I'll be here to answer any more questions.