Computer hasn't booted in 2 days - Can't install Windows

[ShadowWolf810]

Hi everyone, I've desperately tried everything I know to reinstall Windows for the last 2 days, I've done this 10 times successfully on this machine alone in the past, but for some reason I can't get it to work now.

 

I'm trying to install Windows 7 64 bit in UEFI mode to a Samsung 960 Pro on an ASUS X99 USB 3.1 Deluxe board.

 

Here's my basic procedure:

-Download 64 bit Windows 7 ISO by putting product number into microsoft.com.  

-Format USB stick clean, then use Rufus to create a bootable USB stick, with GPT Partition table, FAT32, Default Cluster size, bootable media box checked. 

-Go into BIOS, force system to boot from the UEFI: version of my USB stick listed there. 

-Windows installer comes up, do custom install. Load the Samsung 960 NVMe controller driver so that Windows can see the drive during install. 

-Drive shows up, I go into format it and create the partitions, but Windows will only create 2 partitions instead of the necessary 3. It creates 128 MB MSR and Primary, but no 100 MB System partition. 

-Install will instantly freeze, delay and then freeze, or even fully install Windows. When that happens it installs to the 960 Pro with 1 partition shown in DIsk Management, just the primary partition. If you try to boot back into it without the install media it goes straight back to BIOS. I can only get to the desktop of the Windows install if the USB is used to boot, and even then the desktop freezes shortly after trying to do anything and you're forced to power down. 

 

That's the gist of what's going on, now here is the extensive list of things I've tried. 

-I've tried using my original Windows install CD instead of the downloaded ISO. 

-I've used the same USB stick that I've used for 3+ years to do all my bootable installs, everything from Windows 7-10, Linux, Mac OS, etc. This one has always worked. 

-I've tried a different USB stick. 

-I've tried creating the bootable USB stick myself from the command line and without using Rufus, following guides online. 

-I've tried creating the installer configured as GPT for UEFI and as MBR for UEFI in Rufus, on both of the USB sticks I've tried. 

-I've flashed my motherboard BIOS version to the latest release.

-I've gotten the latest NVMe controller driver from Samsung, and other websites.

-I've created a bootable Samsung installer to update the Firmware of the 960 Pro. 

-I've tried slipstreaming that driver from a storage HDD, as well as from another USB during install. 

-I've tried using DISKPART during the install to manually create the 3 partitions on the drive, but when I try to install Windows says that it cannot create or find a system partition. 

-I've done a complete, deep format of the 960 Pro with "clean all" in DISKPART, as well as a deep format of the USB sticks I'm trying before running Rufus. 

-I've tried disabling all 4 secure boot keys in BIOS because when attempting to install with them active you get errors about it. 

-I've tried setting my BIOS to only recognize UEFI instead of UEFI and legacy boot under CSM. 

-I've tried using the "active" command in DISKPART to force partitions and drives to be labeled as Boot disk, but only get an error saying that the "active" command can only be used with fixed MBR disk partitions. 

 

 

I'm sure there's some other stuff that I've tried too, but its been two days and I can't see straight anymore. This was supposed to be a quick 1 or 2 hour clean install to get a fresh backup image after installing all my software so I wouldn't ever have to do this again. I've had these exact same issues when trying to install Windows 7 in UEFI mode on a regular SATA Samsung 840 EVO so I know its not JUST the NVMe drive causing issues. This happened before and I wrote a huge list of everything I did to finally get it working down in my notebook, and here I am following all that stuff and absolutely none of it works correctly. 

 

Please, any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

[kb5zue]

I just finished doing a clean install on my new Asus TUF Sabertooth 990FX 3.0 and to avoid any trouble I used the Windows Media Creation tool.  Made sure that my Samsung 850 Pro (512gigs) was the only drive attached and everything went great.  I downloaded the Windows Media Creation tool directly from Microsoft and created the necessary bootup on a USB thumb drive.  The whole procedure didn't take as long as I thought it would and I am now using that machine instead of the old backup to type this note.

 

Mobo: Asus TUF Sabertooth 990FX 3.0

CPU: AMD FX8370 (currently at 4.337GHz.)

Ram: Corsair Vengeance Pro (4x8 - 32 Gigs total)

PSU: Corsair RM1000x

GPU: AMD R7 260x

 

I browse, read news, read LinusTechTips, play World of Warcraft.  My next step is to upgrade the GPU and the case to CoolerMaster 5T.

 

[Windows7ge]

Are you able to boot any OS on the system at all from anything? USB, SSD, HDD, CD, Floppy even? Cause that list of troubleshooting is so extensive I'm thinking faulty hardware. If people went though that much effort before posting to the forum this place would be a ghost town.

 

Only things I can think of are check your memory. Pull a stick or two. See if it changes. I would doubt the processor is at fault but you can't rule it out. Then the motherboard is the only other culprit.

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

Are you able to boot any OS on the system at all from anything? USB, SSD, HDD, CD, Floppy even? Cause that list of troubleshooting is so extensive I'm thinking faulty hardware. If people went though that much effort before posting to the forum this place would be a ghost town.

 

Only things I can think of are check your memory. Pull a stick or two. See if it changes. I would doubt the processor is at fault but you can't rule it out. Then the motherboard is the only other culprit.

Yeah I also have a Linux installer laying around and I was able to boot from that, I didn't actually install it but was able to boot to the installer. The system has been perfectly functional for months though. This is the first time I've had to manually install my OS to my 960. When I first upgraded to it, I had an OS install with all my programs that I wanted to keep, so I used the Samsung Data Migration tool and it cloned my drive to the 960 and everything went flawlessly. Whenever I've tried to install WIndows 7 in UEFI particularly I have all these freezing and crashing and just strange problems, I really don't understand it. 

 

I appreciate you noticing how much effort I put into trying to fix it myself first haha! I honestly have no idea what else to try. Although I think I will try just a super barebones config, none of my PCIe cards, 1 stick of RAM, just the 960 connected. Will report back in a few. Fingers crossed.

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, kb5zue said:

I just finished doing a clean install on my new Asus TUF Sabertooth 990FX 3.0 and to avoid any trouble I used the Windows Media Creation tool.  Made sure that my Samsung 850 Pro (512gigs) was the only drive attached and everything went great.  I downloaded the Windows Media Creation tool directly from Microsoft and created the necessary bootup on a USB thumb drive.  The whole procedure didn't take as long as I thought it would and I am now using that machine instead of the old backup to type this note.

 

Mobo: Asus TUF Sabertooth 990FX 3.0

CPU: AMD FX8370 (currently at 4.337GHz.)

Ram: Corsair Vengeance Pro (4x8 - 32 Gigs total)

PSU: Corsair RM1000x

GPU: AMD R7 260x

 

I browse, read news, read LinusTechTips, play World of Warcraft.  My next step is to upgrade the GPU and the case to CoolerMaster 5T.

 

I'm glad you got yours working. I just tried the Windows 7 equivalent of the Media Creation tool (Windows 7-USB-DVD Tool). Selected my ISO, told the USB I wanted, clicked next and it tried to copy everything over. It said that it worked but that it couldn't access bootsec and so it couldn't make the USB bootable. 

[Droidbot]

try Win10.

try a 2.0 port. 

rufus BIOS install, MBR and try again

[kb5zue]

Sorry it didn't work out.  I made my USB boot on my old backup and then put it in the new setup.  Just had to make sure the new setup BIOS was set to boot from the thumb drive.  I like the way it partitions and formats the drive so that I don't have to mess with it.  Many years ago in a land far, far away, I partitioned the drive without fully understanding what "partitioning" really did.  Now I know so to make it easier I use AOMEI partition software.  They have a free version that does everything I could ask it to do.  Hope you get it going soon.

 

[kb5zue]

Oh yea, just curios.  Why Win 7 and not Win 10?  I remember reading somewhere (don't remember where) that Mickeysoft was going to drop support for Win 7 if they haven't already.

 

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Droidbot said:

try Win10.

try a 2.0 port. 

rufus BIOS install, MBR and try again

Hmm don't have a Windows 10 install code, would rather not pay the $100+ dollars just to see if it works. I'm stubborn and hanging on to 7 for dear life. Even if it worked, what would that tell us about the Windows 7 install not working? I guess I could just switch to 10 but... eww.

 

I have tried everything in 2.0 and 3.0 ports, even tried slipstreaming the USB 3.0 driver so that the installer would have "native support" for it. 

 

I'll definitely see what happens with a BIOS install and then trying the UEFI install again though

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, kb5zue said:

Oh yea, just curios.  Why Win 7 and not Win 10?  I remember reading somewhere (don't remember where) that Mickeysoft was going to drop support for Win 7 if they haven't already.

 

Just stubborn, prefer Windows 7, don't really wanna pay 100 bucks to "upgrade." Don't really like all the spying and how it has no regard for the preferences that you set, if you get an Update it'll just change it to whatever it wants. Don't really want to have to constantly be checking it. I'm also a video editor and there's some compatibility issues with some of my software I hear. I have Win10 on my laptop (where I'm writing this) and the OS makes the disk spike to 100% for no reason, and I don't know it just doesn't seem to work smoothly.  

[Windows7ge]

7 minutes ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

Yeah I also have a Linux installer laying around and I was able to boot from that, I didn't actually install it but was able to boot to the installer. The system has been perfectly functional for months though. This is the first time I've had to manually install my OS to my 960. When I first upgraded to it, I had an OS install with all my programs that I wanted to keep, so I used the Samsung Data Migration tool and it cloned my drive to the 960 and everything went flawlessly. Whenever I've tried to install WIndows 7 in UEFI particularly I have all these freezing and crashing and just strange problems, I really don't understand it. 

 

I appreciate you noticing how much effort I put into trying to fix it myself first haha! I honestly have no idea what else to try. Although I think I will try just a super barebones config, none of my PCIe cards, 1 stick of RAM, just the 960 connected. Will report back in a few. Fingers crossed.

I've had experience with Rufus creating UEFI bootable USBs and even though my systems being 100% UEFI supported they would refuse to work with. Only when I created a boot drive using Master Boot Record (MBR) for BIOS or UEFI does it work. However you ruled this out in your troubleshooting because in your case it didn't help. I would try creating a Windows bootable USB. See if the system can run Windows from a thumb drive. If it has the same freeze, crash issues as before then it's probably the motherboard. If it works then the fault might be whatever controls the M.2 slot. I think the North Bridge but I think that's inside Intel CPU's. You mentioned you tried it from a SATA drive with similar results which could make it the PCH's fault. I know some motherboard use the 4 or 8 PCI_e lanes from the PCB. If that's where the control is coming from you might just have a faulty PCH on your motherboard. I'm getting ahead of myself though one thing at a time.

 

You're welcome. I'm like you in that regard. I will spend hours or days trying everything I know and researching then ask for help when I'm out of ideas. I think it's the best way of going about it. You don't really learn anything if you ask for help immediately. You have to struggle with it a little.

[Droidbot]

14 minutes ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

Just stubborn, prefer Windows 7, don't really wanna pay 100 bucks to "upgrade." Don't really like all the spying and how it has no regard for the preferences that you set, if you get an Update it'll just change it to whatever it wants. Don't really want to have to constantly be checking it. I'm also a video editor and there's some compatibility issues with some of my software I hear. I have Win10 on my laptop (where I'm writing this) and the OS makes the disk spike to 100% for no reason, and I don't know it just doesn't seem to work smoothly.  

- Win7 also has spying, integrated through updates

- Try reinstalling

- Upgrades are still free 

 

 

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Droidbot said:

- Win7 also has spying, integrated through updates

- Try reinstalling

- Upgrades are still free 

 

 

Upgrades still free? True, everything has a little spying these days. Its mostly the fact that Win10 disregards your preference settings with new updates it seems like. It would honestly probably be the right move to just go with Win10, since they're dropping support for 7 and whatnot but ughhhh. Its like dropping my baby down the stairs lol. 

[ShadowWolf810]

@Droidbot @Windows7ge Ok we've made a little progress. After taking out RAM and PCIe cards other than GPU, running a GPT Rufus installer actually created the 3 correct partitions all one its own. It still froze during the install but maybe, just maybe if I do it a few more times I'll get it working. 

[Droidbot]

8 minutes ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

Upgrades still free? True, everything has a little spying these days. Its mostly the fact that Win10 disregards your preference settings with new updates it seems like. It would honestly probably be the right move to just go with Win10, since they're dropping support for 7 and whatnot but ughhhh. Its like dropping my baby down the stairs lol. 

Yep, went from 7 to 10 on my laptop for $0. Ended up reinstalling and configuring tri-boot, but hey - it works

The only annoying thing that Win10 disregards is me turning off Defender - due to it detecting my dev build of Forza Horizon 3 when NO other AV does. Conflict of interest, MS.. Even unregisters the app as an actual app, and turns active protection back on.  Disabling it was easy peasy. 

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Droidbot said:

Yep, went from 7 to 10 on my laptop for $0. Ended up reinstalling and configuring tri-boot, but hey - it works

The only annoying thing that Win10 disregards is me turning off Defender - due to it detecting my dev build of Forza Horizon 3 when NO other AV does. Conflict of interest, MS.. Even unregisters the app as an actual app, and turns active protection back on.  Disabling it was easy peasy. 

I've been trying to triboot my laptop with Win10 Linux and Mac OS, have got the first two, can't get mac going ahah maybe we'll have to talk about that later. 

 

So how did you go about upgrading to Win10 for free still? And how would I go about making sure it gets installed in UEFI mode? Everything I can find about it says "Upgrade" and not just a regular ISO download, which would mean I need to get Win7 working first, and then upgrade to 10, but if I can only install Win7 in BIOS mode won't it remain that way?

[Droidbot]

3 minutes ago, ShadowWolf810 said:

I've been trying to triboot my laptop with Win10 Linux and Mac OS, have got the first two, can't get mac going ahah maybe we'll have to talk about that later. 

 

So how did you go about upgrading to Win10 for free still? And how would I go about making sure it gets installed in UEFI mode? Everything I can find about it says "Upgrade" and not just a regular ISO download, which would mean I need to get Win7 working first, and then upgrade to 10, but if I can only install Win7 in BIOS mode won't it remain that way?

https://www.howtogeek.com/266072/you-can-still-get-windows-10-for-free-with-a-windows-7-8-or-8.1-key/

 

Protip: UEFI install OSX, then install Windows, boot back into OSX using the flash drive you made for it, redo Clover, then install Linux and make sure it's checked in Clover's config.plist. 

 

 

[ArduinoBen]

Try using the Windows Recovery Media.  That's what I use.  It can repair the OS, salvage data before restoring, and restore the OS (both with and without erasing all your data).  Good luck.    

[ArduinoBen]

You should also do a check of all your hardware, to see if any of that has broken.

 

Also, did you just shut down your PC the night before and then it couldn't boot the next day, or did it abruptly shut down.  That would be a pretty helpful thing to know as well.

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Droidbot said:

https://www.howtogeek.com/266072/you-can-still-get-windows-10-for-free-with-a-windows-7-8-or-8.1-key/

 

Protip: UEFI install OSX, then install Windows, boot back into OSX using the flash drive you made for it, redo Clover, then install Linux and make sure it's checked in Clover's config.plist. 

 

 

Hmmmm I might just bite the bullet and do that. Looks like I could still just reinstall Windows 7 with my Product key if there were any major problems. 

 

For the booting, I haven't been trying it with Clover, was trying to get it working just with GRUB because I've seen some tutorials for that but with everything else going on I haven't had time to truly sit down and try all my options for getting the triple boot to work. 

 

One thing though is that I can't even seem to my laptop to run a OSX installer, it just refuses to boot into a Mac bootable USB, so I'm thinking maybe theres a hardware issue? I'm not sure. 

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, ArduinoBen said:

You should also do a check of all your hardware, to see if any of that has broken.

 

Also, did you just shut down your PC the night before and then it couldn't boot the next day, or did it abruptly shut down.  That would be a pretty helpful thing to know as well.

All the hardware seems to be fine, the PC was running fine the other day. And no it was a manual reinstallation because I wanted to do a clean install. So all remnants of that install are definitely gone by now with all the reformatting of the drive I've done. 

[Droidbot]

Just now, ShadowWolf810 said:

Hmmmm I might just bite the bullet and do that. Looks like I could still just reinstall Windows 7 with my Product key if there were any major problems. 

 

For the booting, I haven't been trying it with Clover, was trying to get it working just with GRUB because I've seen some tutorials for that but with everything else going on I haven't had time to truly sit down and try all my options for getting the triple boot to work. 

 

One thing though is that I can't even seem to my laptop to run a OSX installer, it just refuses to boot into a Mac bootable USB, so I'm thinking maybe theres a hardware issue? I'm not sure. 

Mine wouldn't at first, you need to load the clover laptop config for your GPU and res: 

OS-X-Clover-Laptop-Config-master.zip

 

Can't talk more about it here, even though this is in a legal gray area. 

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Droidbot said:

Mine wouldn't at first, you need to load the clover laptop config for your GPU and res: 

OS-X-Clover-Laptop-Config-master.zip

 

Can't talk more about it here, even though this is in a legal gray area. 

Gotcha, do you for Windows 10, if I have Windows 7 Pro, will I automatically get Windows 10 Pro? Think I'll try it out but the media creation tool is only giving me options for Windows 10, Windows 10 N and Windows Home Single Language

[Droidbot]

Just now, ShadowWolf810 said:

Gotcha, do you for Windows 10, if I have Windows 7 Pro, will I automatically get Windows 10 Pro? Think I'll try it out but the media creation tool is only giving me options for Windows 10, Windows 10 N and Windows Home Single Language

Win7 pro does give you Win10 pro. make a Win10 disk, it has both versions - you select during install

[ShadowWolf810]

6 hours ago, Droidbot said:

Win7 pro does give you Win10 pro. make a Win10 disk, it has both versions - you select during install

Perfect, thanks so much. I almost got the Win7 UEFI to work. It installed all the way through a reboot, and then froze on finishing. It even set the 960 as a Windows Boot Manager in BIOS, bet I could have gotten it working but its just not worth all the hassle, and apparently UEFI isn't fully implemented in Win7 so its not really doing anything, boot times aren't any faster, can't use secure boot, etc. Either way its like the end of an era, :(. 

 

You wanna PM about the other stuff when I find the time?