Windows 10: Win 10 preview never worked for me... but......

Win 10 preview has never worked for me either, at least not on a modern Dell core i5 machine. An upgrade install wouldn;t run properly (it took most of the day to install) and a new clean install attempt last week also failed.

At what point in the installation does your fail ?
https://www.tenforums.com/installatio...tml#post250391

 

My Samsung is not UEFI.... it only has UEFI support which is different.... It was built right on the cusp just before all new machines came out with UEFI and secure boot function.... You can't install GPT partition or use one on this laptop

 

@Mooly if you read my posts you'll know exactly where it fails.... I described it in detail

 

I have exactly the same issue with an old Thinkpad R400, that runs Win8.1 perfectly fine. Have no clue, why neither clean install or upgrade from 8.1 will work (driver issue?).
Booting from USB will load the initial Windows logo but after a few moments, the notebook reboots. With the x86 version I at least could see the rotating circle for a moment, but then reboot. Works similar for the uprade: everything works fine until the system reboots, then I am back in the loop, with from time to time the systems tries to start the auto-repair mode, but reboots before.

 

Got it, thanks *Smile

 

Option 2 here, http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...e-windows.html using diskpart, is my preferred way to make bootable windows install USB thumb drives. They work with UEFI and legacy BIOS. It's for windows 8 but also works with Windows 10. You just copy the Windows 10 files to drive instead of the windows 8 files.

 

A bigger hammer perhaps.

Try installing Win10 to a partition of it's own (dual boot with Win8.1) and when it freezes, force a hard shut down (hold the power button for 10-15 seconds).

Wait a few minutes, then fire the puppy up. You might end up in recovery or it might continue where it left off.

I had to do this yesterday upgrading a Dell Intel Desktop machine
it hung the same way you described (yep, I waited a few hours too *Wink) but the install completed after the forced cold start.

Good luck, I know this has been very frustrating.

If that works, try using the Contact Support app instead of the feedback or Insider forums. You should be able to chat or phone with a live person. I would escalate the support call if the initial person is stumped.

 

The key to all that is setting the USB partition (Disk) as ACTIVE

Also on a Non-UEFI system you can force booting to ONLY Legacy boot by renaming the EFI folder on your setup media to EFI.OLD
By doing so the media will only boot into Legacy (MBR) mode

Edit > To only boot the setup media in UEFI mode rename the BOOTMGR file on your setup media to BOOTMGR.OLD
By doing so the media will only boot into UEFI (GPT) mode

 

I obviously don't know for sure.... but with all the time I spent trying and always hitting the same wall at the same place I believe it has to be the BIOS, especially as I installed a brand new SSD and as such, the laptop was effectively brand new with no OS. Something in the BIOS in this machine doesn't work with Windows 10. I even looked into getting a custom made BIOS to flash, but it was right at the point where I was ready to throw in the towel and although I found this uber geeky website dedicated to BIOS modding Bios Mods -The Best BIOS Update and Modification Source I'd got to a point where I'd put in too much time without a result, so I didn't follow it up.

 

I have a desktop PC with legacy BIOS and on one of the early Windows 10 builds I could not install from a USB thumb drive. It locked up just before where you would see the circle of balls. As a last resort I burned a DVD and was able to install from that. BIOS issue? I went back to using a thumb drives after on a latter newer build with no issues.

 

I too tried DVD but with same result.... even going into the ISO files and double tapping the setup.exe got me to the point where a restart was required and then as soon as the logo appeared it stops dead.

I tried to discover if I could log the process or indeed get a cmd window open while trying to install so I could see the install process in real time (if that's even possible) to see which instruction it would get the wrong answer for and stop dead.... but didn't get anywhere with it.

I guess ultimately I'll just have to try installing the official upgrade and hope that it works.... if not I'll carry on with 8.1 until I need a new laptop and upgrade to something that happily runs 10

 

I think my issue was a BIOS issue. It's an older motherboard. In your case that's a tough nut to crack as what's causing the lockup. You could always try legacy mode if its UEFI BIOS. Or turning off AHCI, that's caused issues on install for some.