Installing Windows Issues

[TheSephirothh]

Hi all,

I recently made a post about working on a friends computer and marked it solved because we RMA'd the motherboard and the processor thinking that would fix the issue when those parts were replaced.

However, once we received the parts and built the PC again we still couldn't get it to work properly, but in a different manner. When trying to boot a screen comes up saying BOOTMGR is missing, and when I try to install windows again with a flash drive (no cd drive available) It goes through the "windows is loading files" screen, and either goes black or displays the next screen and goes black then says BOOTMGR is missing. Any help would be greatly appeciated, because I'm fairly lost at this moment.

 

PC Specs:

Motherboard: AsRock 970m Pro3

CPU: AMD FX-6300

RAM: 2x8gb PNY DDR3 1600 Mhz

GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7770

PSU: Corsair Builder Series 430 Watt

HDD: Seagate 500gb (also tried a WD Caviar Black 500gb)

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Can you include a screenshot of the error screen?

[TheSephirothh]

I can't really take one, but the "Windows is Loading Files" screen fades into a black screen then just says "BOOTMGR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" If I restart it loops back into the Windows install and then back to the issue of BOOTMGR is missing.

[shayan_doust]

BOOTMGR is the boot manager. An error as you are indicating means that the boot sector is either missing or is corrupted. It's been a long time since I have installed Microsoft, but is there any way that you can access command prompt even though windows still isn't installed?

[TheSephirothh]

There could be a way yes, if it goes all the way to the install screen before hanging. If the boot sector is corrupt formatting it again through command prompt wouldn't help would it?

 

[Prömetheus]

1 minute ago, TheSephirothh said:

There could be a way yes, if it goes all the way to the install screen before hanging. If the boot sector is corrupt formatting it again through command prompt wouldn't help would it?

 

are you using a usb? maybe the installer is corrupted, try download again?

[TheSephirothh]

I got to the install Windows Screen now! but usually as it proceeds through here it goes to the BOOTMGR is missing screen.

[shayan_doust]

Ok, try pressing f8 right from the beginning of when you are starting your computer. See if it brings up anything

[TheSephirothh]

That would boot the installation into safe mode. I have the command prompt up right now.

2 minutes ago, shayan_doust said:

Ok, try pressing f8 right from the beginning of when you are starting your computer. See if it brings up anything

 

[shayan_doust]

Ok, type  Bootrec /RebuildBcd  into cmd.

[TheSephirothh]

5 minutes ago, shayan_doust said:

Ok, type  Bootrec /RebuildBcd  into cmd.

Ok, after this it said everything was ok, so I proceeded onwards with the installation. Then when it got to "Windows is expanding Files" it went to black the showed the BOOTMGR error again.

[shayan_doust]

1 minute ago, TheSephirothh said:

Ok, after this it said everything was ok, so I proceeded onwards with the installation. Then when it got to "Windows is expanding Files" it went to black the showed the BOOTMGR error again.

This is honestly really strange. Can you make sure that you have properly created a bootable ISO drive and that you have used the correct type of windows (64 bit on a 32 bit pc will cause problems)

[TheSephirothh]

1 minute ago, shayan_doust said:

This is honestly really strange. Can you make sure that you have properly created a bootable ISO drive and that you have used the correct type of windows (64 bit on a 32 bit pc will cause problems)

I have used this drive in previous installs perfectly fine. It has the Windows 7 64bit ISO on it and the FX 6300 is a 64bit processor so I don't see the issue there. But I do agree this is strange, I've never seen this happen. I'm going to try and format the drive through the cmd

[TheSephirothh]

Well, that didn't help at all either. Would pulling my ssd out of my working system and attempting to use that be a good way to troubleshoot?

[TheSephirothh]

Ok, so the ssd couldn't make it much further either. During the process where it says "Windows is expanding files" it made it to about 5% then the screen went black and said "No operating system found" then restarted again. I'm trying to recreate the bootable media once again just to make sure it isn't that.

 

Update: Creating the media again didn't help, the same issue occurred. When the files were expanding the system went black and said no BOOTMGR.

 

Update 2: I've still tried installing windows by changing out the ram and swapping power supplies to see if that fixes the issue any, but still no avail. I'm not sure what to try next, I'm thinking the CPU or Motherboard may be at fault, although they both were just RMA'd.

[JakeNTech]

Make sure you are installing on a freshly formatted drive, and that the bios is detecting the drive, also make sure that the boot order in the bios is correct. if you have tried a new drive it may be the sata ports on the mobo. Try connecting the drive to a different PC and see if they work properly. Once you have established that they work try installing widows on them in a different PC, to make sure that its not the USB drive. If you have no issue use the USB ports on the motherboard as the ones on the front do brake fairly easily. If all else fails try connecting up a DVD drive and installing windows from that

[TheSephirothh]

19 hours ago, fixitnow said:

Make sure you are installing on a freshly formatted drive, and that the bios is detecting the drive, also make sure that the boot order in the bios is correct. if you have tried a new drive it may be the sata ports on the mobo. Try connecting the drive to a different PC and see if they work properly. Once you have established that they work try installing widows on them in a different PC, to make sure that its not the USB drive. If you have no issue use the USB ports on the motherboard as the ones on the front do brake fairly easily. If all else fails try connecting up a DVD drive and installing windows from that

I have tried 3 different drives and an SSD as of now. I've ran through the boot options in the bios just to make sure everything was set up properly as well. I thought it might have been the SATA port too, so I tried plugging the drives into different ones and even using a different cable. I have another desktop at my home, maybe I can pull the drive out of it that all ready has Windows on it and see if I can't get the system to boot properly with that known working copy of Windows. I'll update my results on this post as I try things.

 

Update:

Ok so after I tried this new drive, that has a working copy of windows on it, the system powers up to "Starting Windows" then freezes and reboots. Sometimes going back to that screen then other times asking if I was to start normally or launch recovery. Any Ideas? It seems like the drives aren't the problem

[TheSephirothh]

I was just thinking, could this be CPU or Motherboard related again? I just had the 2 RMA'd. AMD said the CPU memory controller was bad in the previous one and sent a new one. But AsRock just sent another board without saying anything. Is this common at all?

[PalladianPD]

It is definitely a hardware issue IMO. Do what tests you can, probably not the drives. I'm thinking CPU or MOBO. When you RMA hardware they sometimes give you "refurbished" stuff that may fail again.

[TheSephirothh]

11 hours ago, PalladianPD said:

It is definitely a hardware issue IMO. Do what tests you can, probably not the drives. I'm thinking CPU or MOBO. When you RMA hardware they sometimes give you "refurbished" stuff that may fail again.

Thanks for this, I'm going to try and ask local PC stores if they have anything AM3+ that they would be willing to put the cpu in and see if it boots properly. Because after testing all the other components it points back to one of the 2. However, it's hard to see which one when I don't have a spare board or spare cpu of that socket.

[JakeNTech]

On 27/06/2016 at 7:02 PM, TheSephirothh said:

Thanks for this, I'm going to try and ask local PC stores if they have anything AM3+ that they would be willing to put the cpu in and see if it boots properly. Because after testing all the other components it points back to one of the 2. However, it's hard to see which one when I don't have a spare board or spare cpu of that socket.

Hi, sorry I could not reply quicker, have End of year GCSE mocks recently, I would do the same but to be honest if the CPU has gone it might have taken out the mobo with it.If your stuff is still under-warranty take it back to the supplier, IF not you have three options: Replace hard-where until you find the issue, Do what you said, which is a good idea although I am not sure if the guy's at the computer shop will be happy to help with out a small payment, but I may be wrong, or just go for a new PC. Let me know how you get on.

[TheSephirothh]

8 hours ago, fixitnow said:

Hi, sorry I could not reply quicker, have End of year GCSE mocks recently, I would do the same but to be honest if the CPU has gone it might have taken out the mobo with it.If your stuff is still under-warranty take it back to the supplier, IF not you have three options: Replace hard-where until you find the issue, Do what you said, which is a good idea although I am not sure if the guy's at the computer shop will be happy to help with out a small payment, but I may be wrong, or just go for a new PC. Let me know how you get on.

Hey thanks for coming along! All help is welcome, delayed or not. I actually talked to the guy and he offered to let me try a Gigabyte board with the am3+ socket and as long as I do all the work and supply my own thermal paste and heatsink (which I have plenty of) then he would let me do it without charge. Shoutouts to local tech shops. Only drawback is he won't have his board available until this Friday.

[JakeNTech]

15 hours ago, TheSephirothh said:

Hey thanks for coming along! All help is welcome, delayed or not. I actually talked to the guy and he offered to let me try a Gigabyte board with the am3+ socket and as long as I do all the work and supply my own thermal paste and heatsink (which I have plenty of) then he would let me do it without charge. Shoutouts to local tech shops. Only drawback is he won't have his board available until this Friday.

Nice. Hope you get on ok.?

[TheSephirothh]

On 6/29/2016 at 3:32 PM, fixitnow said:

Nice. Hope you get on ok.?

Ok so the motherboard came in early today. I picked it up and put it in, just like normal. Placed the cpu in, and used a known working hard drive (it has windows on it) Also tried using another PSU again after a failed boot. The system will not load up windows at all. It freezes upon loading. Does this indicate the CPU is at fault here?

 

Edit: I tried one thing, just thinking about it. I just turned off the turbo core setting and it seemed like the boot process got a lot further along, before cycling back to a restart or hanging up. So I believe this is almost for sure a CPU issue right?