Sisters HP desktop won't accept a Windows reisntall

[nardo<3susky]

Every time I tried using her PC, the HDD drove me crazy. I tried putting an SSD in and installing Windows like I've done dozens of times, but it never gets to the boot manager. I've tried it with multiple USB's. Do computer manufacturers like HP prohibit this somehow?

[jaslion]

Should just work. Can you get into the bios? If so just put the stick as priority one. If there is a 2.0 port in the back try that too. Did you use the official windows media creation tool?

[nardo<3susky]

Just now, jaslion said:

Should just work. Can you get into the bios? If so just put the stick as priority one. If there is a 2.0 port in the back try that too. Did you use the official windows media creation tool?

I've tried downloading the Windows 10 media tool off their website, and an old official Windows 10 USB I had from my first build. Front and back. Tried changing BIOS priority. Installing on a third USB stick I've had good luck with, so we'll see in about 10

[agatong55]

Did you change the Bios to Legacy or UEFI settings?

[wkdpaul]

* thread moved to the Troubleshooting section *

[Dimondminer11]

When you start up the PC it should say what key to press to get into the boot priority which, at least for my old HP, is F10 or  Esc I believe. Also if the computer is old enough it might not even support booting from a USB drive (my retro PC that has a motherboard from 2004 doesn't support booting from USB and doesn't even support SATA drives)

[nardo<3susky]

4 minutes ago, agatong55 said:

Did you change the Bios to Legacy or UEFI settings?

Well, I'm not able to get past "system recovery" on her desktop. It says I can press escape to get to setup, but the computer seems frozen, no matter what I do

[nardo<3susky]

2 minutes ago, Dimondminer11 said:

When you start up the PC it should say what key to press to get into the boot priority which, at least for my old HP, is F10 or  Esc I believe. Also if the computer is old enough it might not even support booting from a USB drive (my retro PC that has a motherboard from 2004 doesn't support booting from USB and doesn't even support SATA drives)

I believe this model is at most 3 years old, so that shouldn't be an issue. Currently, the PC won't even let me go to BIOS. It just tells me to press escape to go from system recovery to setup, but it appears frozen

 

[agatong55]

Just now, nardo&lt;3susky said:

Well, I'm not able to get past "system recovery" on her desktop. It says I can press escape to get to setup, but the computer seems frozen, no matter what I do

You change that in the BIOS not in the Windows install, you need to check what Mode you are running. 

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, nardo&lt;3susky said:

Well, I'm not able to get past "system recovery" on her desktop. It says I can press escape to get to setup, but the computer seems frozen, no matter what I do

That means you booted into windows recovery. Which means you are booting from the hdd not the usb stick. Windows 10 can skip the bootloading of other devices and this is rather annoying. if it crashes anyways no matter what you do that makes it harder too

[nardo<3susky]

Just now, agatong55 said:

You change that in the BIOS not in the Windows install, you need to check what Mode you are running. 

okay, I'm going to unplug the SSD and my USB and mash the BIOS keys people have mentioned. Hopefully I get through

[agatong55]

2 minutes ago, nardo&lt;3susky said:

okay, I'm going to unplug the SSD and my USB and mash the BIOS keys people have mentioned. Hopefully I get through

You dont have to unplug the SSD or the USB to get into the BIOS keep them plugged in

[nardo<3susky]

5 minutes ago, agatong55 said:

You dont have to unplug the SSD or the USB to get into the BIOS keep them plugged in

Yeah I know that sounds stupid but it hadn't been working for me otherwise. And I wasn't totally wrong. This machine seems to HATE the SSD's I'm using. With just the USB plugged in, I can get to BIOS or to Windows boot manager. With the SSD plugged in (Tried with both Samsung 850 and 860 EVO), it locks up at either the system recovery page, or the HP icon. Can't go to BIOS, or boot manager, even pressing the same BIOS key

 

I don't think it should be a SATA/Power issue, as it was running a 2Tb HDD before, which SURELY draws more power.

[nardo<3susky]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

That means you booted into windows recovery. Which means you are booting from the hdd not the usb stick. Windows 10 can skip the bootloading of other devices and this is rather annoying. if it crashes anyways no matter what you do that makes it harder too

Seems like the system really doesn't want to accept my SSD. Without the SSD or USB, get into BIOS fine. With just USB, BIOS and Windows boot manager fine. With SSD? Locked at system recovery or HP splash logo

 

[jaslion]

1 hour ago, nardo&lt;3susky said:

Seems like the system really doesn't want to accept my SSD. Without the SSD or USB, get into BIOS fine. With just USB, BIOS and Windows boot manager fine. With SSD? Locked at system recovery or HP splash logo

 

I'd say if you can format that drive fully to one ntfs partition sometimes helps.

[nardo<3susky]

2 hours ago, jaslion said:

I'd say if you can format that drive fully to one ntfs partition sometimes helps.

Just an update to this project: Just to sanity check myself, I threw in a spare SSD from Mushkin with Windows on it. Booted fine. Loaded Windows on the Samsung SSD before installing, stuck in a display/boot loop cycle. Weird

[jaslion]

32 minutes ago, nardo&lt;3susky said:

Just an update to this project: Just to sanity check myself, I threw in a spare SSD from Mushkin with Windows on it. Booted fine. Loaded Windows on the Samsung SSD before installing, stuck in a display/boot loop cycle. Weird

Might be the ssd is kinda dead.

[nardo<3susky]

38 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Might be the ssd is kinda dead.

I'd be surprised. It was running in my rig yesterday, and appeared and accepted Windows fine on a different computer today