Can't Install Windows

Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
I have 4 SSDs:
840 Evo - main Win 10 Pro install (1709)
850 Evo - Win 10 Pro N 1809
MX500 - Windows 7 Ultimate - also 2 separate partitions, both for games
Intel 520 - problem

The Intel 520 had a Windows 10 1803 install encrypted with Bitlocker which I use for work.

This wouldn't boot today (error code 0x00000098). As it has hardly anything on it, just some browsers and downloaded office365 I decided to just do a clean install as it would take about as little time to do this as to google a solution.

I used diskpart clean to clear the drive

I booted from my USB disk, which successfully installed 1809 yesterday.

I install Windows 1809 from a USB disk to the Intel drive. The process appears to work fine, the system restarts, and will then happily boot to anything but the Intel SSD.

Looking at the SSD from another OS, it's readable and has what looks like a Windows install on it, although Disk Management shows it to only have the 1 partition. It does, however, apparently have a 16MB MSR partition on it

I tried reinstalling several times, deleting the partitions and installing to either a formatted partition the size of the drive or to the empty space and letting Windows create the partitions it wants.

I've recently rearranged drives in the PC, moving them from the HDD cages to an adapter for the 5.25" bay. It's not hot-swap, just a tray to hold them. This has involved unplugging them and plugging them back in. The MX500 is a new addition. Previously the 850 Evo had the Win 7 install, which with Macrium Reflect I was able to migrate over to the MX500, freeing up the 850 Evo for a clean install of Win 10 1809.

The Intel SSD happily booted Windows after the addition of the MX500 and the move of the Win 7 install to the MX500, when every drive had been unplugged at least once. Yesterday I unplugged the 850 Evo and then plugged it back in, before doing my clean 1809 install.

Pretty much every time I unplugged and replugged in a drive, this caused every OS on booting to insist on running a disk check.

I can only guess that at some point this resulted in the Windows install on the Intel drive being screwed up.

I am therefore loath to disconnect other drives when trying to install Windows.

However, I just installed Ubuntu to the Intel SSD, and for reasons I'm not really sure of it decided to install 2 partitions to my 850 Evo and now I can't boot Windows from that, although it's not a big deal as it was only a fresh install yesterday...

Fast boot is disabled
CSM is enabled
I've cleared the TPM
Setting the Intel SSD to the top of the boot order and disabling all other boot options makes no difference.

All I want is to install Windows to a drive... :/ Or any OS, I'll take any OS that can be encrypted as long as it doesn't wipe out my other installations....

Any suggestions? I'm losing so much time over this nonsense.
 
Frank100

Frank100

Rising Star
Hi,

I know that Windows and even Ubuntu can be a bit limiting in what it will allow you to do in terms of partitioning and what it shows you it has done. I wonder if there are partitioning schema and/or partitions being left behind on one or more of the storage devices which Windows is trying to re-use. After all it won't let you choose whether you use MBR or GPT schema on disks below 2TB in size.

An option might be to wipe at least the first few sectors of the intended Windows OS storage device as this will remove even the partitioning schema. After that it has to create new partitions rather than try to 'intelligently' use partitions it can already see. You might even have to go as far as wipe other storage devices to stop Windows thinking it could/should use those.

If you prefer a GUI tool, something like Paladin by Sumuri can wipe entire devices, although you could also stop it after a short while, because you only need to wipe the first few sectors. It's just a case of blowing away the Master Partition Table, which would all be in sector 0 on a disk using MBR or would be in the next few sectors following sector 0 on a disk using GPT.

Paladin is free and you can 'burn' the ISO to a USB stick and make that bootable. It runs in RAM and doesn't require installation. It also includes a hex viewer which means you can manually view the first few sectors of any attached storage device and if it is all hex 00, then all is good. If you like command line you can use the xxd command too.

I've had to wipe the start of media I wanted to install Windows onto using a different tool before. It didn't matter how many times I tried to use the disk tools provided within the Windows installation, it just wouldn't install properly.

Frank100
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
What follows is guesswork on my part....

Do all the drives use GPT partitions?

Do all Windows systems use UEFI secureboot (I guess they must?)

I think that the lack of a system partition (the EFI boot partition) on the Intel drive is a big clue. This partition must exist and, according to this, it is usually stored on the primary hard drive - which might be one of your other SSDs?

I think that the Ubuntu install (using UEFI?) installed its EFI and Recovery partitions on your 850 EVO overwriting (or screwing up) the Windows EFI and Recovery partitions.

On balance I suspect your issue is UEFI related. I have no idea how UEFI is supposed to function in a multi-boot system but I'd be doing some research on how that works, and where all the partitions go for a new OS install. If it were me, I'd unplug all drives except the Intel drive and try a clean 1809 install on that. If that boots ok then I would suggest you almost certainly have some sort of UEFI multi-boot issue. :)
 
Scott

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
As above, I cannot speak directly about your configuration but I had a nightmare trying to chase my tail with a multi-drive boot system.

What I guess happens is the primary boot drive holds all the boot partition information (UEFI) for all the drives. When you do a clean install on a drive the boot record is updated on the primary drive. If you unplug or move any of the drives it screws things up.

In the end up I think I put the drives in separately to install the OS separately and then, once all plugged in, just used the bios to select which drive I wanted to boot from. It was a nightmare to get to that point though. You don't even know there is an issue until you unplug/move one of the drives that you think is completely independent from the rest.
 
Oussebon

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Many thanks to all.

I removed the Intel SSD, put it in a PC that had no other drives, clean installed ubuntu on that, and just worked from there for the rest of the day. Then reinstalled Windows to the 850 Evo SSD late, late in the evening, which worked flawlessly.. re-encrypted it, redownloaded all the sharepoint and email account materials overnight, and was able to actually work normally the next day.

It's delayed my personal clean install, but salary > PC housekeeping...

What I want to end up with is:
840 Evo: No OS
MX500: Win 7
850 Evo: Win 10 1809 personal
Intel 520 Win 1809 work

In the end up I think I put the drives in separately to install the OS separately and then, once all plugged in, just used the bios to select which drive I wanted to boot from. It was a nightmare to get to that point though. You don't even know there is an issue until you unplug/move one of the drives that you think is completely independent from the rest.
Click to expand...

I might follow The_Scotster's plan and just unplug all the drives, installing OSes 1 by 1. My main reason for not doing that so far is that it triggers Disk Check on each OS for all the drives other than C: for that OS when the drives are plugged back in, and it seems that my original 'work' install on the Intel SSD snuffed it as a result (or it sure was coincidence if not). But if I wait until a point where I can just clean install all the OSes anyway, taking images of the currently working ones first, then it should dodge that.

On balance I suspect your issue is UEFI related. I have no idea how UEFI is supposed to function in a multi-boot system but I'd be doing some research on how that works, and where all the partitions go for a new OS install. If it were me, I'd unplug all drives except the Intel drive and try a clean 1809 install on that. If that boots ok then I would suggest you almost certainly have some sort of UEFI multi-boot issue.
Click to expand...
This seems very likely indeed, thanks for the explanation. To be honest, I had no idea these things worked this way - having never had more than 2 OSes on a PC, which I'd always installed with other drives unplugged...

An option might be to wipe at least the first few sectors of the intended Windows OS storage device as this will remove even the partitioning schema. After that it has to create new partitions rather than try to 'intelligently' use partitions it can already see. You might even have to go as far as wipe other storage devices to stop Windows thinking it could/should use those.
Click to expand...
This is very useful, thanks Frank. If I try to install Windows to it and see it misbehaving even with no other drives in the mix, I'll have something ready to try :)

I'm thinking more the firmware upgrade for the drive: https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/...d-storage.html
Click to expand...
I'm not sure mine is listed. I hadn't considered firmware, however; and given how cheap 240gb SSDs are now, even if I brick it it won't be a disaster. I'll look into what updates are available for the Intel 520 if I'm still having issues installing Windows as the sole drive and Frank's suggestion doesn't work.

My main take away here is that boot partitions can end up on other drives.

What I'm still not entirely clear on is why unplugging/replugging drives triggers disk check for all secondary drives for that OS, and why this can apparently break installs on other drives.
 
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