Windows 10: Windpws 10 Pro will just NOT boot after clean install

Ever since 2015, I have been running a dual boot system with Win7 home and Win10 Pro. This year, I have added Linux Mint 19.2 to the mix. All OS's have their own SSD, or, in Linux' case, HDD.

Win7 was my default OS, and the Bootmanager is located on that SSD.

Recently, I have added RAM, so that I now have 32 GB's of it. I also bought a NVME-PCIe SSD. Win7 does not recognize the new SSD, but Win10 and Linux do. On top of that, some software does not even fully support Win7 anymore, so it's time to move on, much as I hate Win10, and its 'My First Sony'- look.

I first attempted to upgrade Win7 Home to Win10 Home - no luck, so I had to resore the SSD from a full backup.

In the last couple of years, I have been messing about with Win10 a lot, so I decided to do a clean install of it. Oh, the drama...

I have now gone through more than a dozen attempts to install Win10, from flashdrive or DVD, with all other drives connected, and all other drives disconnected, with SecureBoot enabled or disabled....makes no difference at all; each attempt ends with a failure to boot the OS.


I have been messing about with PC's since the XT with a 20 MB HD, have toyed with interrupts and dipswitches, have cursed at modems and I/O-cards, but Win10 beats all its predecessors, easily. When I Google for a solution to this problem, I see a lot of old posts on forums and on YouTube, and most refer to MBR-disks (mine are all UEFI), or just do not work at all.... and some are so complicated that they might as well be written in Chinese.

But it does seem like a more or less common problem with Win10. And I did get the impression, that the problem only occurred in the recent builds of Win10. I have a build from 2015 on an old DVD, but it is probably an MBR-version. I remember I had to convert Win10 to GPT, at one point, coz it was giving a lot of problems. Unfortunately, the DVD from that conversion is nowhere to be found, now. I must have filed it away safely....


So, now my Win10 is dead in the water, and will not boot; I have restored the original version from a backup of the whole SSD, but it will not budge. Win7 will boot, but only from a cold boot; otherwise, it will not see my USB mouse and keyboard.


Linux Mint is doing very well, though. But most of my software does not run on it, nor my games. So I'm stuck with Windows, and need to get it to work again.


What do I need to do to get Win10 Pro to boot on its own? In the near future I will have to ditch Win7 - it seems rather dumb to have to keep that SSD just for the sake of the bootmanager, so that it can launch Win10.

NB: Win7 used to be on SATA 1, and Win10 on SATA 2, but I have reversed that, since it seems the primary disk needs to be the first disk, for the installation to go well. Fat lot of good that did. And I have temporarily removed the NVME, to make sure it does not get in the way with the installation of Win10.


MoBo: ASUS Z87-K, CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K, SSD: Sandisk 240 GB (primary, Win7) + Kingston 120 GB (Win10), RAM: Kingston 4x8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz, HDD: 3x WD different sizes.

:)

 

Clean Windows 10 (?PRO?) install

I have bought a legit "Windows 10 Pro" key of a key website. It is legit since i'm currently using it for over a year now. I currently have Windows 10 Pro installed on my PC and I want to do a clean install. I just can't find the windows 10 Pro download in the tool. But if i could use a windows 10 pro key with a normal windows 10 install, I'll be good to go.

 

Clean Windows 10 (?PRO?) install

As far as I am aware there is no Windows 10 Pro version.
But I'd be happy to be wrong.

 

Clean Install Workaround for Vista

You may remember this news story on techPowerUp! a couple of days ago relating to the lack of clean installs when using the Upgrade Editions of Vista, which required an old OS to be installed. However, Paul Thurrott has managed to find a workaround for this issue, which ironically lets users do a clean install Vista without any previous version of Windows, albeit a little tedious. Here are the steps:

• Boot from the Windows Vista Upgrade DVD as normal
• When prompted for a product code, leave this blank
• Select the version of Vista you have purchased and let Vista install
• When you boot to your desktop for the first time, run the Vista setup from Windows
• This time enter your product key
• When asked whether you want to do an Upgrade of Custom install, select custom and choose a clean install
• Windows will now install for a second time and you should be able to activate it

Remember, these steps are only advised for use in order to achieve a clean install of Vista, it is only legal to use the upgrade editions if you have previously purchased the appropriate version of Windows.

Source: DailyTech