Administrative, Mathematics, Technology and Society

Computer Problems

35 Comments

Welp, Windows (7) isn’t happy with the computer upgrade. It keeps running start-up repair, but it never boots.

[Update a while later]

It occurred to me that Windows might not have liked the BIOS settings. So I went into it, and found something under “Advanced” that enabled it for Windows 8 (which I was planning to upgrade to, anyway). When I did that, it told me that the graphics card was incompatible with that setting. So I pulled the card, and am running directly off the mother board. But now when I try to boot, it dumps me into an EFI shell…

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, this doesn’t seem to be an unusual problem…

I tried moving the SATA port of the hard drive, but no joy.

[Evening update]

Well, isn’t this wonderful. I now have a computer that wantonly destroys USB drives.

[Update a minute after I typed that]

OK, it didn’t destroy the drive. It just made it take a couple minutes to recognize it. I guess that’s not quite as bad, but it still isn’t bootable.

[Late-evening update]

OK, now seriously, it is wrecking flash drives. That’s the second one today. I copy a bootable ISO to a drive, it doesn’t boot, then no other computer can even see the drive. That’s two. Today.

35 thoughts on “Computer Problems”

  1. Try pressing F8 before Windows starts and select Windows boot in safe mode with networking. Then once it boots go to the device manager and right click to uninstall old drivers and restart.

    If it doesn’t work you might need to reinstall. Windows does not like when you change the motherboard and CPU. In fact it might invalidate your Windows license and you might need to phone MS so they can recognize your new hardware configuration.

  2. If you can’t fix it from safe mode you might want to try booting with the Windows 7 install disc and selecting “repair your computer”. If for whatever reason you can’t connect to the network to upgrade your drivers, after you restart and boot into Windows, install the new motherboard drivers from your motherboard driver disc.

  3. Oh. Crap. Just put the Windows 7 install disc and select “repair your computer” then “startup repair”.

    IIRC Windows stores some cryptographic key in the BIOS in UEFI mode and unless that key is installed in the key store the system won’t boot. If you do the boot repair with the Windows 7 install disc that I mentioned above it should fix that. Assuming you have the hard disk setup and connected properly.

    1. I’d love to do that, if only I had an install disk. It’s an HP machine with built-in recovery. And HP is apparently unhappy that I’ve done a hardware upgrade.

      I may just have to resort to buying my own copy of Windows 8.1. Or convincing her to give up Windows, and just load Linux on it.

      1. Also, I should note that I have “Startup Repair” option on the hard drive when I attempt to boot (or at least I did before I changed the BIOS to Windows 8 mode). But it could never do the job, after several attempts.

        2. You should still be able to download an OS image file from Microsoft and use the Windows license key that’s probably taped somewhere on your computer case.

          I’ve done it with my ASUS laptop. It did not come with a Windows DVD either.

          2. I would not normally recommend this, but you could probably find a torrent version of the HP Windows 7 install media. While obtaining the media may be questionable, so long as you use your valid Windows license key, you should be perfectly fine and legal with Microsoft. The EULA is for that operating the OS on that machine, which is what you would be doing. Alternative is to pay HP to send you the install media.

          4. Oh. That’s annoying. It used to be possible to download it from Microsoft. Sometimes I think Microsoft just likes their users to feel miserable.

            I’m in Academia so I don’t actually need to buy a Windows license if I want one. We can just get it off Microsoft DreamSpark. Windows 8 is kind of a waste of time because the interface is optimized for touch screens and unless you have one it is actually counter-productive. I’m still using Windows 7.

  4. If this is the problem I think it is–because I have an MSI with the same issue–you don’t even get to Windows; you get dumped straight into that EFI shell.

    Rand, I have had this problem a few times, but in my case I think it was poor layout on the motherboard. The SATA ports were all under the video card slot, and I think the cable was getting bent a bit, maybe even enough to distort the SATA socket. In the end I wound up getting a right-angle SATA cable–that may not apply to you–and fiddling with the ports too. I had to move it around a couple of times until I found a port that worked, and the problem hasn’t come back. I tend to agree with the people on the Tom’s thread who think it’s a hardware problem, but I’m not sure.

      1. I just wanted to make sure you tried all of them. In my case, I had multiple instances of this, and I wound up switching ports to a different one each time.

  5. Buy a Mac.

    Im typing the rest of this because I got: “Your comment was a bit too short, please go back and try again…”
    Really?

  6. Exactly what is new in the HP system? If the motherboard has been changed to a different model, an HP restore disk won’t work, and the license is probably not valid. Which version of Windows 7 do you need? I have ISOs for Home, Pro and Ultimate in 32-bit and 64-bit. It appears I downloaded them in time, since NOW the links I find on the Web have become invalid. Email me, and I’ll give you directions on retrieving the ISO you need.

      1. It was a home version, 64 bit, but I’d really like to upgrade to Pro, so I can network it properly. I’m still trying to convince her to just move to Linux, though.

      2. Windows 7 Professional SP1 is what I’m using right now.

        If you do want to get her to use Linux I would go for Ubuntu Linux.

        I hate UEFI “Secure Boot”. Because of it I ended up trashing the filesystem on my last hard disk install losing 3 years of work in the process. Thankfully I had backup the most important things but I lost a lot of documents and source code I wrote in the process.

        Richard Stallman calls it “treacherous computing” with good reason. With UEFI you don’t own your own computer. The OS manufacturer, or whoever has the damned cryptographic keys, owns your computer. Apple hardware and Xbox hardware started locking down general purpose PCs like that and now Microsoft managed to push it into the rest of the PC market.

  7. In the BIOS days there were multiple BIOS vendors and this kind of crap was discouraged by competition. With UEFI there are no vendors, it’s now controlled by a ‘forum’ meaning the hardware vendors collectively. Now, you don’t own your computer, they do.

    Sorry, I can’t think of anything helpful. If it was your computer, upgrading should be a simple process… but now, nobody (HP,MS) will accept accountability.

    I trashed my first UEFI laptop when I tried to duel boot Linux Mint. Unrecoverable. Went back and got the identical machine, but will not make another attempt to get what I want. No OS disc either. It makes USB boots (which I’m afraid to test.) When I can afford it I’ll get a dedicated Linux machine.

    The solution would be for customers to revolt but most just want an appliance. Best wishes and hope to hear when you resolve the issue… not with wife 2.0 either!

    1. I have two computers at home with UEFI and both of them can turn off secure boot. IIRC it’s even disabled by default, but I might not be recalling correctly.

        1. “win 10 will be a ‘service’ ”

          No, for the first year after it’s released, if you have Windows 7+, the upgrade is free instead of you having to buy it. It’s not “free for the first year and then you have to start paying.”

      1. I have a bootable flash drive for Linux, and the computer does boot from it. Unfortunately, I just installed to a new SSD, and it still won’t boot from it. Not sure what the problem is.

  9. “BIOS boot” essentially means “pre-UEFI behavior”, and any _sensible_ motherboard will have that as an option. UEFI boot may also be identified as “Secure Boot” (which would be turned off to enable BIOS boot).

    1. Actually, it still won’t boot automatically with that setting. I still have to go into the Boot menu, and explicitly say “Boot from this drive,” now.” And I never see grub, it just boots. I haven’t seen grub yet. So there’s clearly still some tweaking to do.

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