My PC won't boot up after replacing hard drive.

[Phil]

PhillPower 2, thanks to your analysis and warning. I shall take heed.

I have just installed Windows 10 again on the new disk drive. The first attempt started well enough but after a few minutes it went right back to the beginning and I had to start again.

In due course, the installattion completed and on my monitor screen was a beautiful new desktop.

With hope in my heart, I clicked “restart” and it began to restart but once again it would not boot past the blue window logo.

Could it be this new hard drive (which isn’t actually new, it’s refurbished) is essentially faulty?

[phillpower2]

The drive could be faulty but then again so could the motherboard be.

Not going to be online much longer as I have an early start but if you can get into Windows do as was suggested in my reply #16 and use Stand by until I can get back to you in the morning some time.

[Phil]

Okay, I won’t be turning my PC off any time soon.

[phillpower2]

If you have managed to get into Windows can you repeat the CrystalDisk info steps for the new drive so that we can check its health.

[Phil]

I’ve just been doing a little experimenting: I’ve put the new drive into a different (but identical) computer and it boots up perfectly in 60 seconds.

Here is the Crystal disk info on the new drive:

[Phil]

After a little more experimenting, I’ve now put the drive from the “different but identical” computer into the original computer that had the failing drive.

It boots up perfectly!

It seems I now have two identical computers that have good disk drives and are both working just fine.

The drive that is on its last legs is sitting on the desk in front of me, without a home.

The Crystal Info for the drive that is now in the original computer that had a failing drive is attached.

[ATTACH type=“full”]7611[/ATTACH]

Why the newly-purchased disk drive won’t work in computer 1 but works perfectly well in the identical computer 2 is a mystery to me.

I suppose I could stop looking for reasons and just carry on using the two computers which are at this very moment working just fine.

However, the mystery remains and I await comments from those who know far more about computers than I do (i.e. everyone on this forum).

[Phil]

Ignore the report of success in the previous post: the original computer almost immediately refused to respond to mouse clicks and I saw a message bottom left saying “Waiting for cache”.

After waiting for some time, I restarted and it took more than 2 mins to boot to the desktop and then the mouse cursor didn’t appear.

And yet it works fine with the drive that’s on its last legs.

[phillpower2]

Sorry but can we stick to only the one drive and just the one computer, it is easy for you to follow what you have done as you actually did it but trying to follow the steps across three posts makes your head go dizzy o_O

We know nothing about the computer that you are trying to set the drive up on other than you had Windows 10 on it, we need to have some info about the computers hardware and the MB in particular, see the below;

Please provide information about your computer, is it a custom build or brand name such as Dell or HP, if a brand name, provide the model name or series number (not serial) if a custom build post the brand and model name or number for the MB so we can look for drivers.

After installing Windows 10 on the new drive did you then install the chipset drivers, the SATA drivers then the video drivers and in that order, if you didn`t and the computer is an older model you can have trouble as Windows 10 does not have generic drivers for a lot of end of life products.

[Phil]

It’s an HP Elite 8300 SFF.

When planning to replace the hard drive, I went to a few websites to find out how to do it and they said I’d have to install an operating system on the new drive.

There was a link to the Microsoft website where I could download Windows 10 for that purpose. I downloaded it and put it on a USB drive.

I assumed that was all I needed to do. I didn’t install any drivers.

[Phil]

PS. Even if I’d had all the drivers, I couldn’t have installed then if the computer refused to complete the boot process and take me to the desktop, could I?

[phillpower2]

There are no Windows 10 drivers available for your computer so when you actually had Windows running before restarting it may have helped to go here and install the latest chipset and storage drivers for Windows 7, the chipset drivers are what enables all the other hardware to communicate with the MB and if you don`t manually install any drivers Windows will often download and install the wrong drivers when it checks for updates., this only a possibility as to what may have gone on and as you mentioned previously the HDD being refurbished may have some sort of fault.

For clean installing Windows the best steps are to download and save to a USB thumbdrive the chipset, storage and video drivers then after clean installing Windows install the said drivers in that very order.

[Phil]

Here’s an interesting bit of news: I’ve just re-installed the new/refurbished HD and started in Safe Mode with Networking and it booted up just fine.

Any advice about what that means and/or how to proceed would be appreciated.

[phillpower2]

That would normally suggest a driver issue, be it a missing HP driver and Windows using one of its own or the wrong driver getting loaded by Windows on boot.

Question, being that you are running Windows 10 how did you get into Safe Mode with Networking.

[Phil]

I pressed Esc while booting and selected (something) from a menu. I got a message saying Windows hadn’t started properly and giving me some options.

One screen said to click restart to get to safe mode (i think) so I did.

The next screen gave a list of options and I chose f5 - Safe Mode with Networking.

[phillpower2]

You have somehow managed to get into the Windows Recovery Environment (RE) which is real strange as there are only two ways to do it, by restarting within Windows and the rather more difficult and less successful method of starting up and shutting down the computer while Windows is attempting to boot.

If you have access to another computer I would download and save to a USB thumbdrive the chipset, storage and video drivers and see if you are able to install them while still in Safe Mode with Networking, you could alternatively see if you can download and install direct to the computer as it is.

I would suggest for now that you keep the computer running and not restart it at all.