PC won't boot to Windows 8 nor BIOS.

TheWolf-Brigade

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Jan 16, 2013
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Ah man, where do I start...

My PC was running fine, up until I decided to upgrade my ram and replace my old HDD with a 250gb SSD. I'll list the things I did in order that lead to its demise.

1.) I First installed two new sticks of DDR3-1600mhz with my old HDD (didn't install SSD yet), and when I booted up my PC, it wouldn't even boot to BIOS, it just kept restarting every 5 seconds in a continuous loop.

2.) Took out new Ram, PC booted up normally. So I said hey, forget the ram for now, I'll add the SSD to the system. When I did, the same thing happened. PC wouldn't even get to BIOS to set up boot order nor let me get into Windows safe mode. Just a continuous restarting loop.

3.) So I decided to take out old HDD, and do a clean install of Windows 8 on the SSD, everything went smoothly except for one thing, Windows 8 didn't install a system reserve partition on the SSD. There's a 350mb volume that's "unallocated." I ignored it...After the install went smoothly, I installed my old HDD to the system and it was accepted and recognized. So I then decided to install my new Ram again, and that also was accepted!

4.) So, I restarted the PC a few times to make sure everything was running. Shut it off and on...everything was smooth. So I formatted my old HDD, all was well. Shut off my PC...and let's just say it never booted past BIOS again.

5.) I tried removing old HDD, still no luck. I removed new ram sticks, nothing. Heck, I even removed both the HDD and the SSD, no boot, no bios. Just stuck in a restart loop.

My motherboard is an MSI Z77A-G45, the new ram I bought is completely identical the my older ram, it's a corsair vengeance DDR3 1600mhz, even has the same timing, and with the upgrade it would have been 16gb total. My SSD is a Samsung Evo 840 250gb. Last time I flashed my BIOS was last year I believe.

Sorry for the long rant, just trying to be as precise as I can. I really did quite the number on my PC, and wished I did more research upgrading to an SSD beforehand. I really don't want to buy a new motherboard until I've tried almost everything first. Any ideas how I can get out of this repeating restarts? Because it's now happening with or without my drives installed.
 
Solution
Once you've removed the unallocated space with EaseUs use Drive Options (Advanced) during installation to ensure only Unallocated Space to install on.

TheWolf-Brigade

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Hi there, ram was compatible with the mobo. Yes, I now understand that I need to fix a problem before I move on : /
Do you think there's a way to get out of this restarting loop?
 

When you installed Windows to your SSD, did you install to Unallocated Space? If not, then Setup probably installed Boot data to your old HDD, which would explain why it can't boot. Ideally I would recommend you start again, boot from your Installation disk with only the SSD connected, delete all partitions using Drive Options (Advanced) and install to Unallocated Space without formatting or creating any partitions. That way Setup will create all partitions for you, including a 350Mb System reserved partition to hold your Boot Data.

 

TheWolf-Brigade

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Hey Dodgers, my old HDD wasn't installed when I did a clean install of Windows 8 on my SSD, I installed it after I set up the SSD, then formatted the old HDD through computer management when things seemed to be running well. Right now I managed to put all ram sticks in, I switched their order around and they seem to be working again, and I downclocked their speed from 1600mhz to 1333mhz for added stability. Windows is booting up to desktop again, I still haven't installed any drivers yet either. Should I reset my BIOS settings to default? And also, when I get to the screen to re-install windows, delete won't get rid of that 350mb unallocated partition that's already there. When I look at my storage from computer management, I see the 350mb unallocated space, and the healthy C: - Strange that it's booting up without a system reserve. It's as if Windows created the space for it but didn't install the reserve.

I wan't to do a clean install again, but that unallocated 350 mb won't go away.
 

Hmmm.... not met that one before! Perhaps use EaseUs Partition Master to expand C into the Unallocated Space. It can expand C in any direction, whereas Disk Manager cannot.
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm
Then you should be able to clean install...

 

TheWolf-Brigade

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Ok, i'll try that. Before I do a clean install, should I delete or format through the windows setup DVD?
 

unplanned bacon

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Jan 11, 2014
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I've had this. On my very first install of 8 it created the reserve partition, then forgot about it and left it as unallocated so there was no reserve partition on that install and I couldn't get rid off the unallocated (disc management finally managed though).
 

TheWolf-Brigade

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Thanks alot dodger, that EaseUS program really helped clean up my drives like the day I first opened them. I also did everything a step at a time as suggested, clean install of Windows on SSD, updated everything, then installed new ram, and finally got the 1TB in there as secondary storage. I used EaseUS on that too, completely wiped it and reformatted it. Thanks again brother, keep up the good work.