TRYING To Install Windows 10...Trying

[BoomerD]

I've never had such a difficult (and so far, failing) time of installing an OS to a new drive.
First...Unplugged her existing HDD Boot drive.
Connected the SSD.
Next, set the USB drive with the Windows 10 install media as first boot in BIOS.
Boot to the USB, the Windows installer pops up...I can get maybe 30 seconds into it...the screen goes black. The "power light" on the monitor stays on, the fans in the box continue to run...but nothing on screen. I've let it sit for 30 minutes, just in case her OLD PC is just slow...nothing.
I DID get as far as the point where Windows asks where I want to install it...twice. First time it said the drive was MBR and I had to change it to GPT...so I backed out and did that. (thought it was already done, but apparently not) Second time, at the same point, it said something to the effect of "Can't set or make a partition on this drive." Weird because it has one active partition...but I backed out again, made sure it had ONE active GPT partition (EUFI), tried again...back to the black screen crap.
I've browsed in the BIOS to see if there's some kind of timer that's causing the screen to go black...can't find one if there is.

So, I tried installing from an OEM Windows 10 disk. I get the "blue windows logo" but it never goes past that point.

The PC specs (as far as I know) are:
Dell Inspiron from 2014
Intel i5-4440
2x4GB DDR3 RAM
CPU graphics
Dell 24" monitor connected via HDMI
Toshiba 1TB HDD
Toshiba 256GB SSD
Some misc. DVD drive
Computer originally came with W8.1 installed, it "automatically" upgraded itself to W10 a couple of years back.

 

[tcsenter]

How did you create the USB, using the Microsoft Download tool or Rufus? If Rufus, when creating USB, did you select options to prepare the bootable USB for GPT/UEFI and not MBR with legacy CSM/BIOS?

When you mentioned there was already a MBR partition on the drive, how did that get there? I would start with a RAW empty disk and let Windows Setup handle everything, as long as you have UEFI (non-CSM) and Secure Boot enabled in BIOS (which I assume was already, if the system shipped with 8.1) you'll get GPT parition. Just delete/clean the new drive of all partitions and try again.

Check for updated BIOS from DELL? Yes there could be relevant updates or fixes.

If not already, use one of the USB 2.0 ports not USB 3.0 (blue) ports. In BIOS, check for an option described as 'USB Compatibility Patch". If it was enabled, try disabling it. If it was disabled, try enabling it. Not really sure what that setting actually does but it worked when I was having trouble installing Windows on a PC several months ago and the boot manager was erroring out while trying to load/install Windows.

Unplug those other writable drives until after Windows is installed.

 

[JackMDS]

May be this can help.

How to install Windows 10 from USB with UEFI support

These tools help create a compatible USB flash drive and install Windows 10 on a UEFI-based PC.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[BoomerD]

May be this can help.

How to install Windows 10 from USB with UEFI support

These tools help create a compatible USB flash drive and install Windows 10 on a UEFI-based PC.

www.windowscentral.com

Her PC has an "old style" Phoenix American Megatrends something BIOS.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Her PC has an "old style" Phoenix something BIOS.

Oh. I was thinking it was an Optiplex. Can you post screenshots of every BIOS option? Maybe there's some option there that might get Windows to work.

 

[BoomerD]

Oh. I was thinking it was an Optiplex. Can you post screenshots of every BIOS option? Maybe there's some option there that might get Windows to work.

Not optiplex, Inspiron. I posted a pic of the BIOS start...and fixed the previous post. NOT Phoenix BIOS, American Megatrends.

 

[JackMDS]

I have this Computer.

DELL Inspiron 620
CPU: Intel Core i5-2320 (Sandy Bridge-DT, D2)
3000 MHz (30.00x100.0) @ 3193 MHz (32.00x99.8)
Motherboard: DELL 0GDG8Y
BIOS: A04, 11/21/2011
Chipset: Intel H61 (Cougar Point)

It first was upgraded to Win 10 years ago and then upgrded to Win 11, it can run very well the Home version or the Pro version. The upgrade from Win 10 to Win 111 was done with USB that its ISO was installed with Rufus 3.x.

There is one thing that I learned the hard way. If One have old computer that came out as MBR, even it is has BIOS that suppose to be capable of EU FI not use GPT on the Boor drive, and leave it as MBR

GPT can be used on a secondary Data HD/SSD but not on the Boot drive.

 

[BoomerD]

I have this Computer.

DELL Inspiron 620
CPU: Intel Core i5-2320 (Sandy Bridge-DT, D2)
3000 MHz (30.00x100.0) @ 3193 MHz (32.00x99.8)
Motherboard: DELL 0GDG8Y
BIOS: A04, 11/21/2011
Chipset: Intel H61 (Cougar Point)

It first was upgraded to Win 10 years ago and then upgrded to Win 11, it can run very well the Home version or the Pro version. The upgrade from Win 10 to Win 111 was done with USB that its ISO was installed with Rufus 3.x.

There is one thing that I learned the hard way. If One have old computer that came out as MBR, even it is has BIOS that suppose to be capable of EU FI not use GPT on the Boor drive, and leave it as MBR

GPT can be used on a secondary Data HD/SSD but not on the Boot drive.

When I tried to install Win10, it refused to install when the SSD showed as MBR. Said W10 required GPT to install.

 

[pcgeek11]

When I tried to install Win10, it refused to install when the SSD showed as MBR. Said W10 required GPT to install.

Here they have instructions:

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style

learn.microsoft.com

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style


When installing Windows on UEFI-based PCs using Windows Setup, your hard drive partition style must be set up to support either UEFI mode or legacy BIOS-compatibility mode.


For example, if you receive the error message: Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is not of the GPT partition style, it’s because your PC is booted in UEFI mode, but your hard drive is not configured for UEFI mode. You’ve got a few options:

1. Reboot the PC in legacy BIOS-compatibility mode. This option lets you keep the existing partition style. For more info, see Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS mode.
2. Configure your drive for UEFI by using the GPT partition style. This option lets you use the PC’s UEFI firmware features.
   You can preserve your data and convert the drive using the MBR2GPT tool, or you can choose to reformat the drive using the instructions below. Reformatting will erase all the data on the drive.

 

[BoomerD]

Here they have instructions:

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style

learn.microsoft.com

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style


When installing Windows on UEFI-based PCs using Windows Setup, your hard drive partition style must be set up to support either UEFI mode or legacy BIOS-compatibility mode.


For example, if you receive the error message: Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is not of the GPT partition style, it’s because your PC is booted in UEFI mode, but your hard drive is not configured for UEFI mode. You’ve got a few options:

1. Reboot the PC in legacy BIOS-compatibility mode. This option lets you keep the existing partition style. For more info, see Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS mode.
2. Configure your drive for UEFI by using the GPT partition style. This option lets you use the PC’s UEFI firmware features.
   You can preserve your data and convert the drive using the MBR2GPT tool, or you can choose to reformat the drive using the instructions below. Reformatting will erase all the data on the drive.

never mind. msinfo says UEFI BIOS type.

 

[tcsenter]

There is one thing that I learned the hard way. If One have old computer that came out as MBR, even it is has BIOS that suppose to be capable of EUFI not use GPT on the Boor drive, and leave it as MBR.

That is two generations behind BoomerD's Inspiron 3000 family, predated UEFI and Windows 8.1. His system shipped with W81 so it had to have shipped with Secure Boot enabled, that requires GPT for the boot drive. And has received several BIOS updates.

 

[tcsenter]

Has you did eeeit?

 

[BoomerD]

Has you did eeeit?

No. Doing battle with the network issue pushed this onto a back burner for now.

 

[mxnerd]

My old Dell Optiplex 9020 BIOS is - peculiar, and hard to deal with. Same with blank screen scenario a few times in a year. It has difficulty to identify which one is the primary - iGPU or plugged-in GPU. Sometimes it can't even recognize one of the display in Windows device manager. I had to unplug the external GPU and reset the PC via removing CMOS battery and putting it back in.

Anyway, if it's regarding formatting efi/gpt disk, see if GParted USB helps.

 

[tcsenter]

Oh that reminds me, I recently upgraded my PC to i5-4690K (from a Pentium) and added another SSD. I also noticed I had installed the DIMMs in the wrong slots last time, not that it mattered really but it was not the 'recommended' population rule for using two DIMMs, so I changed my two memory modules over to the recommended config. Tried to boot the PC and it gave four short beeps, then shut down. AMI BIOS beep codes correspond to 'system clock/timer IC has failed' or 'a memory error in the first bank of memory'. Must be something wrong with the memory, so I made sure to reseat the DIMMs again, 4 beeps. Put the memory back in the slots they had been in, 4 beeps. Reset the CMOS (jumper), the system would boot to BIOS but after inputting my custom values, save and exist, upon restart 4 beeps!

After a couple more futile attempts, I decided to replace the CMOS battery because of the 'system clock/timer' mention in the beep code. Voila! It was only five old. Deficient CMOS battery seems to be able to produce a number of unintuitive symptoms beyond just the old 'CMOS checksum error' or system clock not keeping time and date.

 

[tcsenter]

EEEIT??