Aorus Z390 Master issue Winload.efi error

GBH4

GBH4

GBH4

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Joined
8 Aug 2010
Posts
121
Hi all

I’m having a nightmare at the moment trying to install Windows 10 on my PC.
It’s recently been upgraded to an i7-9700k with a 2080 super.

My drive is a Samsung 256Gb SM950 nvme ssd.

The problems I’m having is that Windows will install ok and then straight away keep freezing stating an error with winload.efi upon restart.

Firstly it doesn’t show it in the bios.
It shows up as a drive to install Windows to during the setup.

I’ve reset cmos, disabled/enabled csam, tried loads of things with the bootsect command and nothing alters it. Drive has been wiped using diskpart and still it has this issue.

It goes all the way through the Windows installation and setup ok, but once it boots into Windows it then freezes after a short time and that’s it. Winload.efi error on reboot.

Any ideas would be appreciated!
 
Is it overclocked at all (CPU and RAM)?

You can try going into Diskpart (again), cleaning the drive, and convert to GPT. Then proceed with Windows install only up to a point - where you choose the partition to install Windows on. Choose New and Windows will say it will create other necessary partition/s. Choose OK. Once it creates the System Reserved partition and the main partition, exit. Go back into Diskpart, mark the System Reserved partition as Active, and then format the main partition as NTFS. Assign the correct letters to each partition in case Windows didn't do so or mixed them up, i.e. main partition C: and System Reserved some other letter. Then try installing again.

Windows can sometimes get mixed up when the manufacturer partitions get nuked during cleaning. Above method is manually telling it how to do it, in case it's not able to, assuming that's the issue. Could also be dodgy RAM or disk by the way. But you haven't mentioned upgrading RAM or disk so let's assume they are okay for now.
 
Thanks, everything is at stock.

The ram and disk are existing and were working fine.

Would it matter that this particular Samsung sm950 drive is not on the list of compatible drives on gigabyte’s website?
It has the 512gb version, but not my 256gb version.
 
have you got a 120gb sata SSD you can test install windows on, at least you would know if it was the m.2 socket or m.2 drive causing the issue.
 
The drive should work fine.

Set the CSM correctly to UEFI.

Disable all the extra stuff in Bios like wifi, bluetooth and all additional HW not needed to load windows. Then enable once install is complete.
 
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