Wont boot anything, iaStorA.sys

[sanzebs]

Hi.

After trying to get the computer to boot from the USB stick, trying to clean install win10, i pressed the x-button in the setup window. The install stopped and the computer restarted.

After that whatever I do; Boot from HDD or USB, or try to enter repair, or anything that needs the Win10 loading screen, It gives me blue screen.
It says "Stop Code: Page fault in non paged area, What Failed: iastorav.sys" when I boot from HDD or "Stop Code: DRIVER IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL, What Failed: iaStorA.sys" when I boot from USB.

I do have 1TB HDD that has 80GB SSD cache, with Intel rapid storage.

My computer is 2013 Alienware 18 with 2x GTX880m and i7-4910MQ.
4x 4GB RAM.

1TB HDD, 80GB cache and 250GB SSD.

What on earth should I do???

I want to install Windows 10.

Here is a video of the endless boot sycle: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zff0xqru00b2jxv/VID_20170403_235342.mp4?dl=0

EDIT:
Later on the anwer was to remove acceleration in the first option screen using ctrl+I.

But we faced more complicated problem. Samsung EVO 850 SSD did not boot at all. Whatever we tried.
We agreed that the problem had to be Samsung SSD, or Alienware 18. (The SSD is now my storage drive, it works without problem in that use case)

 

[Colif]

80gb seems awfully big for a cache drive... here is your manual

is there anything on C drive you want to rescue? try making this on another PC: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ - linux won't have these driver errors at boot

iastorav.sys's description is "Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver
iastora.sys = Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver

I am seeing a pattern.

I wonder why irst is running on the USB boot... it shouldn't be as its not part of windows. Did you press F12 at start up and Select "USB Storage Device" from boot menu, as otherwise it will stick to the hdd. might need to disable Secure boot in bios (might show it on page 110 on in the manual above)

 

[Colif]

if all you want to do is reinstall win 10, see if this works - this won't work if you get those errors though

Press Shift F10 on the installation screen, this will open cmd
type diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
this shows all drives available, DVD/USB and hdd, make note of ssd/hdd number
type Select disk X - where X is the number of the hdd you want to install to, change X to that number and press enter
once the drive you want to install on is chosen, type Clean << that wipes drive so could do it on both cache and hdd at this point.

 

[sanzebs]

80gb seems awfully big for a cache drive... here is your manual

is there anything on C drive you want to rescue? try making this on another PC: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ - linux won't have these driver errors at boot

iastorav.sys's description is "Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver
iastora.sys = Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver

I am seeing a pattern.

I wonder why irst is running on the USB boot... it shouldn't be as its not part of windows. Did you press F12 at start up and Select "USB Storage Device" from boot menu, as otherwise it will stick to the hdd. might need to disable Secure boot in bios (might show it on page 110 on in the manual above)

Okay.

So, I have tried every possible combination of booting. Anything that has the Windows loading screen, also the USBstick file, fails.

60GB of the cache is used as cache. The remainings are used for some weird backup storage or something. Both of them were not accesable via explorer. The remaining part was showing tho. The cache one is not bootable (suprise).
I syncronized the cache and the accelerated HDD in the Rapid Storage BIOS or something, whatever it means.

Did nothing.

Went through some similar threads here in Tomshardware. Someone got away with removing RAM. So I removed half of my RAM, 2 sticks. Did nothing.

Now that you said that it is totally the Intel Rapid Storage, I tought it has to be the HDDs fault. Removed the HDD.

It boots! Yay!

I managed to boot from USBstick. It works, but I am now stuck in the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen.

I can see the remaining part of the cache drive, as well as some weird 128MB MSR drive and my 232GB SSD.

I formated my SSD. Now it says something "Installer could not create a new partition or does not found one."

So, I dodged the original problem, but now I have a new one...

Is this good or bad?

 

[Colif]

MSR is a windows partition, but its functions are mysterious as its often empty

So the cache drive is a 250gb ssd? or do you have it as well in PC? If cache drive is the ssd, why use irst as ssd is big enough to install win 10 on and not use as cache. Cache drives mainly there to speed up old hdd, as when they released the ssd was likely to only be 64gb or smaller, and not big enough to install windows onto by itself. But since ssd now much bigger, the benefit of using a small fast cache to speed up a slow hdd at boot is gone.

If you have a ssd, I would replace entire irst set up, and use both as storage, ssd as boot

 

[sanzebs]

if all you want to do is reinstall win 10, see if this works - this won't work if you get those errors though

Press Shift F10 on the installation screen, this will open cmd
type diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
this shows all drives available, DVD/USB and hdd, make note of ssd/hdd number
type Select disk X - where X is the number of the hdd you want to install to, change X to that number and press enter
once the drive you want to install on is chosen, type Clean << that wipes drive so could do it on both cache and hdd at this point.

And you just solved the new problem. Tho I can not connect the HDD into the computer or the USB installer will not boot.

Did the clean to the SSD tho, it worked.
I managed to create new partitions to the SSD in the "Where do you want to install Windows?" window.

It is now installing to the SSD! Yeah!

I will report any issues and we will see what happens when I blug the HDD back in after the installation...

 

[Colif]

how did you format ssd? (sorry, slow to read last bit)... you should leave it as unallocated space and click next and win 10 will create 4 partitions.

slow again

 

[sanzebs]

MSR is a windows partition, but its functions are mysterious as its often empty

So the cache drive is a 250gb ssd? or do you have it as well in PC? If cache drive is the ssd, why use irst as ssd is big enough to install win 10 on and not use as cache. Cache drives mainly there to speed up old hdd, as when they released the ssd was likely to only be 64gb or smaller, and not big enough to install windows onto by itself. But since ssd now much bigger, the benefit of using a small fast cache to speed up a slow hdd at boot is gone.

If you have a ssd, I would replace entire irst set up, and use both as storage, ssd as boot

Sorry, I was not wery clear.

So I have 1TB HDD with 80GB of cache, wich uses only 60GB for caching.
In addition to that I have a 250GB SSD, where I am trying to get the Win10.

 

[Colif]

you might be best putting hdd into another PC as 2nd drive and copy anything off it and then run https://dban.org/ on the drive and wipe it before putting it back in PC again. It shouldn't misbehave again. (careful to wipe right drive with dban - though it doesn't work with ssd)

the cache isn't needed with the ssd, so format it however you like and use it for storage as well (is it soldered onto motherboard or can you remove/replace it?)

 

[sanzebs]

Okay, new problems.

The problem might have been Alienware all along.
It is possible, that the BIOS does not boot anything else, if the 1 disk is inserted. In this case, the HDD.
That is why I could not boot from the USB before.

Now when I removed the HDD, it managed to boot from the USB. I installed the windows to the SSD and rebooted. It does not work.

It jumps right back to installation. Now when I select the SSD, it says "Windows cannot be installed to this drive. This computers hardware might not support booting into this drive."

I tried again.

Cleaned the SSD, booted from the USB and installed the Windows 10. This time I did not create the partitions in the "Where you want instal Windows" window before clicking next.
It installed fine. After installation I disconnected the USBstick.

I went through BIOS and tried my best to get the boot order right. I tried different combinations, but I cannot boot to my SSD.

After installation, and via F12 and selecting the drive, it gives me "Check the cable connection!" error.

I'll try swapping HDD and SSD so the SSD is in the first slot. I wonder how the cache reacts tho...

 

[Colif]

When PC restarts during the install after you see a screen with 5 tick marks (see stage 14 here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html ), take out USB or it will restart the install process - this has been tripping people up of late.

Is secure boot enabled now? it should be to match win 10 (I see it at top of boot menu).

what boot mode is set? have a look on page 118 of manual, if its set to legacy, try swapping it to UEFI

if UEFI is set, the Windows Boot Manager should be top choice for SSD since the others match booting off a network (see page 116)

 

[sanzebs]

When PC restarts during the install after you see a screen with 5 tick marks (see stage 14 here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html ), take out USB or it will restart the install process - this has been tripping people up of late.

Is secure boot enabled now? it should be to match win 10 (I see it at top of boot menu).

what boot mode is set? have a look on page 118 of manual, if its set to legacy, try swapping it to UEFI

if UEFI is set, the Windows Boot Manager should be top choice for SSD since the others match booting off a network (see page 116)

The boot settings:
Windows 8 fast boot enabled,
usb hotkey disabled,
Secure boot enabled,
Load Legasy options rom disabled,
Boot list option UEFI,
Secure boot mode Standard,

There is Legacy and UEFI lists. UEFU shows the USBstick if inserted and LAN IPv4 and LAN IPv6. Legacy shows the SSD as "Hard Drive" and CD and Network.

If I enable secure boot, I cannot use Legacy options.

With those settings above, no luck. "No Boot Device Found".

 

[Colif]

i think we set SSD up as legacy so if you change secure to disabled and Boot list to legacy its likely to boot off SSD (if the cache drive is empty now, i wonder if it had the old boot sector).

I may have set you up like this by disabling secure originally. In many cases the PC ignores USB if you have secure on, so i get people to turn it off. Most new motherboards smart enough to swap if they recognise UEFI

UEFI/Legacy make very little difference on the drive sizes you are using. Both just as good as each other.

edit: used wrong words

 

[sanzebs]

i think we set SSD up as legacy so if you change secure to disabled and Boot list to legacy its likely to boot off SSD (if the cache drive is empty now, i wonder if it had the old boot sector).

I may have set you up like this by disabling secure originally. In many cases the PC ignores USB if you have secure on, so i get people to turn it off. Most new motherboards smart enough to swap if they recognise UEFI

UEFI/Legacy make very little difference on the drive sizes you are using. Both just as good as each other.

edit: used wrong words

Okay. The UEFI and the Legacy look little different. It has worked with Legacy before this mess.

My SSD is on the Legacy list.
Now my BIOS boot options are:
Secure boot disabled,
Load Legacy Boot option rom enabled,
Boot list option UEFI,

USB is not attached. I also did not clean the cache.

 

[Colif]

According to manual, Boot list should be Legacy

Boot list options: Allows you to set the boot sequence order—UEFI or Legacy.
NOTE: This option is disabled when Secure Boot option is enabled.

otherwise it will try to boot UEFI 1st and you don't have that.

sorry if I made any of the mess.

 

[sanzebs]

According to manual, Boot list should be Legacy

Boot list options: Allows you to set the boot sequence order—UEFI or Legacy.
NOTE: This option is disabled when Secure Boot option is enabled.

otherwise it will try to boot UEFI 1st and you don't have that.

sorry if I made any of the mess.

So this is the only thing I gow when trying to use the SSD in boot.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/78ita854s5lhvqj/IMG_20170404_155140.jpg?dl=0

So it seems that it can not find anything from the SSD, now I see that that is the internet option, the last on in boot line...

 

[Colif]

blink... I thought HDD showed in the legacy choices

There is Legacy and UEFI lists. UEFU shows the USBstick if inserted and LAN IPv4 and LAN IPv6. Legacy shows the SSD as "Hard Drive" and CD and Network.

so why now it ignoring it and trying to use network?

whatrs going on here? EUFI and Legacy aren't seeing the ssd to boot off.

can you take all the drives out except SSD {including cache) and set PC up for UEFI (and if you want to have a break or something, go ahead) using the steps you showed before

The boot settings:
Windows 8 fast boot enabled,
usb hotkey disabled,
Secure boot enabled,
Load Legasy options rom disabled,
Boot list option UEFI,
Secure boot mode Standard,

and we install win 10 again but as UEFI and then don't touch the boot order after as Win 10 can talk to the UEFI direct and set it up how it should be

this guide might help: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html

 

[Colif]

Are your drives set up as ahci or raid? its on the advanced tab (page 112 of manual)

SATA Operation Allows you to configure the operating mode
of the integrated SATA hard drive controller.
• AHCI: SATA is configured for AHCI mode.
• RAID: SATA is configured for RAID mode.[/quote]

IRST may have put both hdd and cache into RAID so might be why PC can't see drive.

Curious if the msata is doing anything. I can see legacy can't boot off it but UEFI might be able to as the choice of devices uefi supports is much bigger.

Sorry this taking so long

 

[sanzebs]

blink... I thought HDD showed in the legacy choices

There is Legacy and UEFI lists. UEFU shows the USBstick if inserted and LAN IPv4 and LAN IPv6. Legacy shows the SSD as "Hard Drive" and CD and Network.

so why now it ignoring it and trying to use network?

whatrs going on here? EUFI and Legacy aren't seeing the ssd to boot off.

can you take all the drives out except SSD {including cache) and set PC up for UEFI (and if you want to have a break or something, go ahead) using the steps you showed before

The boot settings:
Windows 8 fast boot enabled,
usb hotkey disabled,
Secure boot enabled,
Load Legasy options rom disabled,
Boot list option UEFI,
Secure boot mode Standard,

and we install win 10 again but as UEFI and then don't touch the boot order after as Win 10 can talk to the UEFI direct and set it up how it should be

this guide might help: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1950-clean-install-windows-10-a.html

Ok. Now we have:
HDD, SSD, Cache with 2 partitions and USB.

BIOS can recognize them all if they are blugged in.
In bios, the SSD is "First Hard drive", the HDD is "Second hard drive". Cache cannot be seen in boot menus and cannot be booted in.

HDD unblugged:
This computer does not boot to SSD either because it goes right trough 'first hard drive' and 'CD' to the last option on the boot list; "internet".

If I blug in the HDD, It tries to boot but fails to the blue screen like in the original problem.

Apparently both of the 'hard drives' (SSD and HDD) are before the USB, so that is why I could not boot to USB previously.

IRST Option ROM shows me that both, SSD and HDD types/status are Non-RAID Disk.

BIOS shows me that the SSD is on the slot named "Fixed HDD" and the HDD is on the slot named "Second HDD".
Cache is on the slot named "m-SATA"

I disconnected the HDD.

I have to change the boot option to UEFI so I can boot from the USB.
When I do this, Windows10 installation starts.

What shoul I do now?

I appreciate greatly that you even answer at all.

 

[Colif]

At this point, I would consider asking on http://forum.notebookreview.com/forums/alienware-18-and-m18x.1092/ as someone there would have your laptop and may reach the right answer much faster than I am. You might want to link to this post in your question there. Beats writing it all out again.

I wonder what format it was originally. curious still why hdd stops PC booting even if its not in boot order. Curious why ssd can't boot itself.

let me know how you go. If no answer, come back and I see what i can figure out... surely someone on that forum will be able to help though. Its for owners of this laptop

 

[sanzebs]

At this point, I would consider asking on http://forum.notebookreview.com/forums/alienware-18-and-m18x.1092/ as someone there would have your laptop and may reach the right answer much faster than I am. You might want to link to this post in your question there. Beats writing it all out again.

I wonder what format it was originally. curious still why hdd stops PC booting even if its not in boot order. Curious why ssd can't boot itself.

let me know how you go. If no answer, come back and I see what i can figure out... surely someone on that forum will be able to help though. Its for owners of this laptop

I was a fool.

Now I understand what you were saying earlier!

Okay, so I have installed succesfully on SSD only in UEFI. But I cannot boot the SSD while I am in UEFI boot mode.

Only way to boot from SSD is Legacy.

I now understood the BIOS optios and the F12 options!
USB is shown on both of them, UEFI and Legacy. And the USB is shown 2 times in F12, when the Legacy mode is selected. One boots the USB in Legacy and the other in UEFI.

I have pressed the UEFI option all this time!

That is why the install started again earlier, and you said to disconnect the USB after the install. It simply could not find anything on the SSD and booted from USB.

So, now I am in the Windows 10 setup in Legacy boot mode.

Now the problem is that it says something "Windows cannot be installed to this drive. This computers hardware might not support booting into this drive. Make sure thet the driver of this drive has been enabled in the computers BIOS."

So how do I do that?

 

[sanzebs]

Here is what I see:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3ktgsn7ljjjeb0/IMG_20170404_221421.jpg?dl=0

 

[sanzebs]

Are your drives set up as ahci or raid? its on the advanced tab (page 112 of manual)

SATA Operation Allows you to configure the operating mode
of the integrated SATA hard drive controller.
• AHCI: SATA is configured for AHCI mode.
• RAID: SATA is configured for RAID mode.[/quote]

IRST may have put both hdd and cache into RAID so might be why PC can't see drive.

Curious if the msata is doing anything. I can see legacy can't boot off it but UEFI might be able to as the choice of devices uefi supports is much bigger.

Sorry this taking so long

I missed this message before. Good me...

The 'SATA operation' is set to RAID. The other options are AHCI and ATA.

I tried to install with AHCI but same problem.

It is now set to RAID

 

[sanzebs]

A little update.

I tried to install from DVD for a change. The result stayed the same.

In UEFI boot I can install the Windows to the SSD just fine. It will be GPT format, whatever that means. SATA operation was AHCI.
All is good, exept that I cannot boot from the SSD... Windows Boot Manager is missing from UEFI list. It is there in the manual. I even tried this with no luck: http://woshub.com/how-to-repair-uefi-bootloader-in-windows-8/

So if it was not obvious already, Windows has to be installed in Legacy boot. Or at least in MBR format...I think...

Btw the acceleration is ruined at this point. Proppablu because I changed the SATA from RAID to AHCI. Now I can see the cache part normally.

I tried to convert the SSD to MBR format with cmd before installing in UEFI, but it suprisingly did not do anything.

 

[Colif]

i had to go to sleep, it was 3am here.

Do your BIOS settings for an SSD with GPT boot settings look like this?

The boot settings:
Windows 8 fast boot enabled,
usb hotkey disabled,
Secure boot enabled,
Load Legacy options rom disabled,
Boot list option UEFI,
Secure boot mode Standard,

as I am quoting you from before.

Changing Boot Mode for Future Boots
1 Turn on (or restart) your computer.
2 During POST, when the DELL logo is displayed, watch for the F2 prompt to appear and
then press <F2> immediately.
NOTE: The F2 prompt indicates that the keyboard has initialized. This prompt
can appear very quickly, so you must watch for it, and then press <F2>. If you
press <F2> before the F2 prompt, this keystroke is lost. If you wait too long and
the operating system logo appears, continue to wait until you see the operating
system’s desktop. Then, turn off your computer and try again.
3 Use the arrow keys to highlight Change boot mode setting menu option and
press <Enter> to access the menu.
4 Use the arrow keys to select legacy boot mode or UEFI boot mode and press <Enter>.

that is from manual. according to page 115-116 it should have windows Boot Manager as a choice

turning raid off was necessary as PC only seems to have 2 sata channels and if raid was set in motherboard it would over rule settings in Windows installer. Don't need cache with ssd as boot drive, its just an extra drive for you now. Hdd might even not cause PC to crash if put it now other part of raid no longer there?

The fact you can install as GPT proves it doesn't need to run as MBR. I will explain what they are below but right now, need to figure out why you missing WBM. If your settings right, you can also ask on the Dell Alienware forums, I should have linked to those last night


GPT and MBR are related only in that GPT replaced MBR.
MBR is the legacy formatting scheme for hdd and has been since 1981. It has its limits like only allowing 4 partitions on a hdd and only seeing a max hdd size of 2tb
GPT matches the EUFI and replaces MBR and fixes many of the limitations of MBR. The max number of partitions you can have is now 128 and the size of each partition is maximum of 18.8 million tb
Legacy cannot boot GPT, though EUFI can boot MBR