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Thread: Can't Boot Windows 10

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  1. #1
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    Can't Boot Windows 10

    Well, I guess I did it good this time. Wife turns on her PC, old machine I put together a few years back, says it wants to update Windows, so I say let it do it. Upon booting it just sits there showing the logon screen for a few moments, then flashes back black, then back to logon, etc. Once I got an exception error message, but didn't get to write it down. I think the file it mentioned it couldn't start had the word logon in it, and that kinda made sense. I restarted the machine a few times and it finally booted into safe mode. I went to do a restore and it said restore was turned of. That makes no sense to me, I would never do that. Anyway, seeing as I had hit a brick wall I remembered that I had just swapped her drive for an SSD about two months ago & never removed the drive. I changed the boot order and after doing updates it's running again. She never really saves anything so as long as her mail & browser favorites are good, she's in business.

    Now I am wondering if there is anything I can do with the installation on that SSD or should I just transfer the hard disk to it again. BTW, the HDD did have restore turned on and since I transferred from it originally, I don't get why it was turned off.

    Thanks
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  2. #2
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    restore
    Why has Microsoft done this?

    Nobody is entirely sure, but some current theories are:

    • On smaller devices (cheap tablets) with only 16 or 32gb of space, there isn’t enough room to have a system restore file as well.
    • Windows 10 has excellent ‘in-place upgrades’ from build to build, but this interferes with System Restore in some way, therefore they are turned off.
    • Windows 8/8.1 and 10 have ‘Reset/Refresh this PC’ which effectively reinstalls Windows whilst keeping all your files and programs installed. I love the idea of this, but still don’t trust it entirely!
    • System Restore is too complicated for end users (might be true, but it is very useful when troubleshooting a client’s computers!)
    • Users thought System Restore was a replacement for a backup – it’s not. System Restore is used to backup your computer’s settings, not your files.
    I would download win 10 and do a repair install. Made my own DVD just in case I needed to do that.

  3. #3
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    Thanks, I'll follow through on that.

    In all honesty, I feel she also needs a new PC or else a laptop. Hers is really old and slow. When I put the SSD in I didn't see the kind of change I expected. Have to keep working on that one.
    Last edited by TonyMan; 09-27-2017 at 09:57 PM.
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    Did you do a good clean up and defrag before cloning?

    TFC (Temp File Cleaner) is my secret tool. So far the most it has recovered that I know of is 123 GB.
    http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files...r-by-oldtimer/

    I usually use it once a week, sometimes twice, depending on how much I use Win 10 that week. Because 400 MB of temps start slowing down Win 10 even if it is on a SSD.

  5. #5
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    I will try the clean up tool. When the original cloning was done, the SSD was new out of the box. I was under the impression that you shouldn't be running a defrag program on an SSD.
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    Generally I do not, but before I clone a hdd to a SSD I will clean and defrag the hdd. This is what I was referring to.

    The defrag on SSD in Win 10 is now more of a trim operation than the old defrag that we had used. And SSDs are a lot hardier now than when they came out.
    I have run it once I believe on SSDs with Win 10 installed.
    Now with MSI motherboards, the post operation is quite long, but once it gets past that, The boot up is quick.

  7. #7
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    Hey Train, I didn't forget about this, just got waylaid with other stuff. I tried defragging the SSD with no change. I also used a restore media to Check the Windows system & it said no issues. Rather than doing a restore install from disk I think I will just clone the working HD to the SSD and see if that way it can boot. I know my wife doesn't have much on there, but this way she will have her browser favorites and anything she might have saved.

    If that doesn't work or it happens again then I'm leaning towards an actual SSD problem and maybe can get some satisfaction from San Disk.
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    Sounds like a good plan to me.

    Life does get to interfering sometimes.

  9. #9
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    Well, after cloning, the system won't get into Windows. Same as before, flashes the logon screen a couple times then blank. Not sure if it's the SSD or just her PC (wondering how I got the SSD working in the first place). I did some reading and looked at the PC and am of the opinion it's the system itself. It's an old ASUS motherboard with an Athlon 9600B chip and 4 Gig of DDR2. It takes about 3 -4 minutes to boot from the HD. I checked the ASUS website and this board is not on their list for Windows 10, so that is starting to make me feel a little concerned. I looked at the SanDisk Dashboard app and it says the SSD is running at 1.5 G/sec and connecting it to a 6 G/sec connector woulds be better (no kidding). The ASUS Manual says it runs at 3 G/sec, so no idea what is going on with this, but just another thing that concerns me. It has the latest BIOS, but that was 2010. Gettin the feeling I could spend hours on this setup and get no further.

    I was thinking about convincing her to get a laptop but do have another solution. I could get me a new motherboard, CPU, and memory, then give her my old stuff. It runs an SSD and I am satisfied with how it runs. That way, I get a new toy and a couple of projects!
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  10. #10
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    it says the SSD is running at 1.5 G/sec
    Did you set the SATA port to AHCI? You should have done that BEFORE installing Windows, though.

    I went to do a restore and it said restore was turned of.
    If you mean System Restore, it is OFF by default in Win10. You'd need to turn it on.
    https://www.howtogeek.com/237230/how...on-windows-10/

    What app are you using to clone the drive? Is it SSD aware?

  11. #11
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    "Did you set the SATA port to AHCI? You should have done that BEFORE installing Windows, though."

    I looked through the BIOS and do not see that anywhere. I tried to upload a copy of the maual for the motherboard, but it's too large. I searched the PDF for AHCI and nothing was found. This BIOS (the most current) is from 2010 - is it possible it wasn't used back then? I found this for turning on AHCI in Windows 10, but since it also has you change the BIOS, I don't think it's worth trying: http://triplescomputers.com/blog/unc...hci-operation/. I actually found this procedure in a couple different sites.

    "What app are you using to clone the drive? Is it SSD aware?"

    Using a free version of Acronis WD Edition. The SanDisk Dashboard had a link to download it for cloning purposes
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  12. #12
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    Post the exact model number of the motherboard. If you don't have AHCI enabled, then it's probably defaulting to IDE mode.

  13. #13
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    The motherboard is an ASUS M2N68-AM PLUS. BBIOS is 1804, the latest one listed.

    Thanks
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  14. #14
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M2N68AM_PLUS/
    Ok, that board doesn't support AHCI. Without that, you're bottlenecking the SSD performance.

  15. #15
    Senior Member TonyMan's Avatar
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    Thanks, at least I didn’t miss anything.

    Based on this and since ASUS doesn’t list this motherboard as Windows 10 certified, I believe it’s time to retire it and get a working system.

    Again, thanks for the help folks!
    Strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a form of government.

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