Windows 10: I can't boot from any media to do the clean install

I've made some progress. I reset the BIOS defaults and can install working versions of Window 7 Pro 64 bit and Windows 8 Pro 64 bit. I can now boot the Windows 10 DVD and installation media created by the Media Creation Tool but the PC hangs after the first reboot showing a static blue Windows logo on a black background. I tried updating from Windows 7/8 using the Media Creation Tool media but the Windows 10 installation hangs at the same point. All attempts to install Windows 10 64 bit fail at the same point after the first reboot. I'm running a minimal hardware configurations so I'm wondering if there is a BIOS incompatibility with Windows 10. It's surprising Windows 8 64 bit installs with the right drivers but Windows 10 doesn't. I can't find any obvious errors in the installation logs.

Could I perform a clean install of Windows 10 64 bit in a MBR configuration using a virtual machine, save an image using Reflect then restore that image to the old PC using the deploy function in Reflect? Is there perhaps a chance Windows 10 will find the right drivers and activate (since I already have a digital licence for the PC for Windows 32 bit)?

 

Windows setup is done in three phases: installation, which when ready restarts to device configuration, which then restarts to OOBE. According to you your W10 x64 setup fails in device configuration phase, after first restart. If so, I very much doubt your plan using VM and then deploying system image will work. Of course it's worth to try, though!

Deploying to dissimilar hardware will do the second phase of Windows setup, removing old hardware drivers and replacing them with new ones. Basically the same will happen than what happens in setup after first restart, devices will be configured.

If you are right and it's a driver issue, and if you still want to try, you might want to install W8.1 x64 and export its drivers and inject them to your W10 x64 install.wim, create a new ISO and try to install W10 with drivers already in place. See Step 2 in following tutorial for how to export drivers (works in 8.1, too), and from Step 3 to end of tutorial for how to inject drivers to install media: DISM - Add or Remove Drivers on an Offline Image Tutorials

Theoretically this might work, but I do not promise anything!

 

Thanks to all for your help. Sadly, I've given up for the time being trying to install Windows 10 64 bit on this old PC. All upgrade routes fail at the same point when the installer does the first reboot. I even tried restoring a Reflect Image of my laptop's W10 64 bit clean install to the old PC using Reflect Fix Boot and Redeploy functions but that failed too at the same point! I suspect there is a basic BIOS or driver / hardware incompatibility with 64 bit Windows.

Anyway, Reflect has restored the 32 bit installation I did last week so I'll just use that.

 

That's what I doubted, it fails due the same reason your clean installs fail at device configuration phase

If it was me, I would do one more test as I told in my previous post. Install W8.1 x64, let it update, capture and export drivers, inject those drivers to W10 x64 install.wim, make new install media based on that (DVD or USB) and try clean install.

 

I'll try that in a while!

 

I have my doubts for that, too, but I can't think of anything else you haven't tried already. Theoretically, it would bypass the phase of setup where you have issues, device configuration, because all device drivers would already be in place.

 

You can follow my instructions at my tutorial to clean install Windows OS from hard disk drive.

Clean Install Windows Directly from the Hard Disk Drive

 

It turns out I was wrong in post 27 and my CPU doesn't support the CMPXCHG16b instruction. *Sad

I'm surprised the setup.exe program didn't warn me. Anyway I learned much about Windows installations so my time wasn't entirely wasted. I'm sticking with my 32 bit Windows 10 Pro FCU museum piece configured for £5 now. Let's see how long Windows 10 will keep working on it.