Can't get Win10 installer to run (driver issues in installer?)

[kylec]

Although, hang on... the USB drive does show up in "disktool list" output. That's not what I would have expected.

It might imply that there is something wrong with the way the USB installer was prepared. It's a little odd that it assigned it the C: letter. Is this a regular USB flash drive? You might want to try it with a different one.

 

[atcodes]

So I've got a mixed bag of news to report back... some good, some bad. It's been a crazy day so I'll try to keep it straight.

Based on the recent posts here I went digging in the bios settings to try and make some changes to get further in the windows installer. I only had a few minutes available to work on it this morning but I figured that if I could get the installer running, I could let it complete while I showered and ate breakfast -- multitasking win.

As luck would have it, I was able to get the installer to run. These are the settings I changed before that successful run:



Alas, this is where I made a huge mistake.

As I was in a bit of a hurry, I forgot to fully shut down and unplug my OSX drive and plug in the intended OSX target drive. The installer finally loaded properly and, in my fit of happiness, I quickly destroyed the partitions on the drive and let the installer run while I left to eat and get cleaned up for the day. It wasn't until I was brushing my teeth that I realized what I had done. I'm glad nobody else was home because that was the loudest I think I've ever cursed.

Gladly, at the advice of another poster here back when I originally installed OSX a few months back, I had a recent clone of the entire drive. So at this point I had:

• ~empty target windows ssd
• my (until today) "daily driver" osx ssd, now trashed and overwritten with Windows
• an approximately 10 day old clone of the daily driver which is my new daily driver.

Thankfully 95% of what would have changed between the last clone and today was in dropbox or otherwise saved to the cloud, so I lost very little. Mostly I lost hair and probably a few years off my life.

I was eventually able to boot up from the clone and use OSX for work today, which was good. I am in fact writing this post on it right now.

Alas, it's not all good news from here.

Currently, I don't think I'm able to get back into the bios settings. I know that it was F12 for boot order and Delete to get into settings, but for whatever reason, at boot, the (sorry if this is the wrong name/description) POST screen doesn't show (the one where it shows some basic details and then says to hit delete to enter setup). It's just black for maybe 10-15 seconds before showing the clover bootloader. I've tried tapping F12 every 1/2 to 1 second during a cold boot, and that doesn't seem to do anything useful. If anything it just stays on a black screen ~forever. Same for pressing Delete instead of F12 repeatedly at boot.

I believe that I was able to get into the bios ONCE after I had gotten this far, and I didn't change anything at that time. But I haven't been able to find a way back in yet. I believe that it may be something to do with having the windows drive on P0, so I'm going to try moving OSX to P0 and Windows elsewhere and see if that won't sort it out. This is based on the diagnostic led's on the motherboard: The times that it sits at a black screen, the 4th light (Boot) stays lit.

I also don't seem to be able to boot from any USB sticks at the moment, which in my opinion is much worse. I am currently operating on an OSX drive with no way to boot into CloneZilla to make a new backup. I made a fresh CloneZilla USB stick, but haven't been able to boot from it. That's currently my top priority, because I'm terrified of trashing the last disk that I have on hand and need in order to do my job.

I'm spending some time tonight trying to find a way to get a good clone of the working OSX drive.

 

[atcodes]

Although, hang on... the USB drive does show up in "disktool list" output. That's not what I would have expected.

It might imply that there is something wrong with the way the USB installer was prepared. It's a little odd that it assigned it the C: letter. Is this a regular USB flash drive? You might want to try it with a different one.

Sorry, just now saw this.

I agree that it's odd that it was assigned to C. So far I've only gotten into one USB stick for Windows, but I happen to have 3 different versions here I can try. I'll see if either of the other two show up differently now... after I get a clone again (see my last post.)

---

So here's an update on how far I was able to get trying to move drives around, eliminating SATA cables plugged only into the mobo (waiting for install to finish before plugging in other peripherals like storage drives and dvd drive).

I reduced all the way to only 2 SATA connections to the mobo: the working OSX drive and one of the other two. At this point I'd happily clone my working OSX drive to either of the other two. With ONLY the working OSX drive plugged in, and both other SSD's unplugged, I am able to boot from my CloneZilla USB stick.

If I plug in either of the target drives, I can't boot from USB. In that configuration, I can never access the BIOS or the boot menu. I get nothing, or I get nothing and then clover. Clover will show the windows install USB stick as a boot option (but booting it from clover doesn't seem to work), but it will not show the CloneZilla stick as a boot option.

I tried with working OSX drive in P0 and in P2, and results are the same.

My next step is going to be reformatting both of the potential target SSD's to try and get them to at least not crud up the boot.

 

[atcodes]

Current status: I can only get into the BIOS settings (DEL), use the BIOS boot menu (F12), or boot from a USB stick when the ONLY SSD that's connected is the one working drive with OSX installed.

I have reformatted both from within OSX to be 1 large guid partition each, and I've also tried moving things around on P0/etc.

As a reminder, this is the last set of changes I made to the BIOS:

As luck would have it, I was able to get the installer to run. These are the settings I changed before that successful run:

I imagine that I will need to undo one or more of these and/or some other settings to get the BIOS working again with at least one of the other drives attached.

My current goal is to be able to boot CloneZilla and make a clone of my daily-driver SSD. If I can't get it done in my machine I may have to ask a friend with a desktop to help me out.

 

[atcodes]

Today I was able to clone my OSX drive again (hallelujah!) and completely wipe the other spare drive to become a possible install location for Windows.

Unfortunately I still can't get into my Motherboard BIOS/UEFI. I don't see any of the usual mobo information on-screen during boot. The screen stays black until it gets to Clover. At this point I'm worried that I've somehow ruined my mobo. Can anyone help me figure out if that's accurate?

I haven't been able to find any information on re-flashing the mobo firmware from USB or anything other than Windows. Unfortunately I don't have a windows install that I can use to re-flash it. (According to the chart on the CPU tab of this page, for my CPU (i7 8700k) I guess I should use firmware version F1?)

I did try taking my now-available drive and installing Windows onto it while it was attached to another machine, and then dropping it into my machine, hoping that it would boot, but it won't. The POST lights on the mobo stop at "Operating System Status" error.

 

[atcodes]

I'm not sure what series of events led to this happening (my best guess is that it required a certain shutdown/restart sequence from OSX), but I was able to get back into the bios.

Figuring that it had to be one of the settings I last changed, I turned CSM support back off, and now I can see the mobo POST screen and get into the bios on every boot!

From there, I was now finally able to install Windows, and I now have a functioning dual-boot.

 

[DebraKatz]

The Windows 10 that worked on my computer was installed by me,i used an USB as a Windows install disk,just burned Windows iso to an USB then booted computer from it.

 

[andyroo77]

Hi, I am trying to install Windows but no matter how I create the USB installer, when I run it, it tells me either drivers need installing or it gets past that bit but then says it cannot find "install.wim" which I believe is the main Windows Installer file. I have checked the installer and there is a file called "install.wim" in the folder it's supposed to be in so I guess it keeps getting corrupted somehow. Either my download is corrupt (I've had the same issue using 3 different downloads) or the creation of the bootable media fails as it cannot transfer the file correctly due to the size of the file and the formatting of the drive.
What file structure did you format your thumb drive to before creating the installer?
What software did you use to create the installer?
Once I get it working, will I be able to select the target drive or do I have to remove my OS X drive to avoid it getting overwritten?
Once installed, does Windows just show in Clover boot loader as an option?
Have you had any compatibility issues/Windows messing with your OS X etc?

 

[Going Bald]

Hi, I am trying to install Windows but no matter how I create the USB installer, when I run it, it tells me either drivers need installing or it gets past that bit but then says it cannot find "install.wim" which I believe is the main Windows Installer file. I have checked the installer and there is a file called "install.wim" in the folder it's supposed to be in so I guess it keeps getting corrupted somehow. Either my download is corrupt (I've had the same issue using 3 different downloads) or the creation of the bootable media fails as it cannot transfer the file correctly due to the size of the file and the formatting of the drive.
What file structure did you format your thumb drive to before creating the installer?
What software did you use to create the installer?
Once I get it working, will I be able to select the target drive or do I have to remove my OS X drive to avoid it getting overwritten?
Once installed, does Windows just show in Clover boot loader as an option?
Have you had any compatibility issues/Windows messing with your OS X etc?

Suggest using a new/unused 8 or 16 GB USB3 drive for the Win10 installer. Leave it formatted FAT32 as it comes from the factory.For best results, on a Windows PC, use the Windows 10 media creation tool - it will download the latest Win10 ISO and copy it to the USB drive and make it bootable.

 

[andyroo77]

Suggest using a new/unused 8 or 16 GB USB3 drive for the Win10 installer. Leave it formatted FAT32 as it comes from the factory.For best results, on a Windows PC, use the Windows 10 media creation tool - it will download the latest Win10 ISO and copy it to the USB drive and make it bootable.

I managed to get Windows installed using a thumb drive created with Windows. Not sure why I couldn't get it done via OS X alone but all good now. Thanks for replying. I now have a kick ass gaming machine on Windows and an awesome workhorse on the Mac side