Cannot boot into hard drive

xAlphaStick · July 2, 2017

Hi Guys,

I purchased a secondhand PC that was running linux mint. I decided to install windows 10 on it as I intend to use it as a crypto mining rig. So far I have been unsuccessful in trying to boot into a usb or into a hard drive (after removing mint). I then decided to connect the hard drive to my other PC, install windows on it... and then move it back to the PC I just bought. Now I get stuck on this weird screen that freezes after "verifying dmi pool data". Really weird. I have tried everything including reseating RAM/GPU and sata connections, as well as clearing CMOS. Still nothing.... Please see picture attached.

I can enter the bios but none of the changes I make seem to help.

EDIT: I think for some reason the bios is recognising my hard drive as an IDE one? It is connected with SATA though? IDE is before my time and I'm really stuck on this one. It is in the Channel 4 slave option....

Any ideas?

VVoltor · July 2, 2017

Might be Linux bootloader. Connect it to your other computer, but don't boot from it, just boot into Windows on that machine.

Then go into Disk Management, and delete all partitions on the drive that had Linux on it. They probably won't have a label as Windows doesn't recognize Linux partitions.

Afterwards, just put it back into your new PC, boot from a Windows 10 USB stick and install Windows as usual.

xAlphaStick · July 2, 2017

57 minutes ago, VVoltor said:

Might be Linux bootloader. Connect it to your other computer, but don't boot from it, just boot into Windows on that machine.

Then go into Disk Management, and delete all partitions on the drive that had Linux on it. They probably won't have a label as Windows doesn't recognize Linux partitions.

Afterwards, just put it back into your new PC, boot from a Windows 10 USB stick and install Windows as usual.

I am trying a new hard drive this time to install windows on. I think I have gotten a subtle hint as to my larger problem.

What BIOS setting enables this? Clearly its been disabled by accident for some reason.

EDIT: Changed a random setting back to IDE and it seems to have worked.

JakeNTech · July 2, 2017

Unix and OS X want the bios drive mode to be in AHCI but windows want the bios drive callout to be IDE. So thats why it has started to work. Glad you fixed it.