New hardrive, wont boot windows, stuck in bios

Carl Bailey · 28 Dec 2018 at 13:19

I removed a seagate 2 TB hardrive from an old OC PC without backing anything up as I never used the PC, recently installed a new 1tb hardrive and now the PC only boots to bios, I cant access any regular windows settings. The bios shows the hardrive detected but wont load like a regular PC. I've installed a windows media creation tool onto a USB and plugged the USB into the PC, but I cant access it nor see if its detected in bios. Any solutions?

Jasoncmor · 28 Dec 2018 at 14:27

Did your 2tb drive have windows installed on it?

Carl Bailey · 28 Dec 2018 at 14:48

It previously had windows 10 installed and ran fine. I've tried to use the media creation tool from Microsoft's site via USB but the USB is too small, I've ordered a large enough USB but I still dont see how I can access the USB on the new PC when its stuck in bios. Unless it runs automatically. Everything else is working.

mattyfez · 28 Dec 2018 at 15:12

If you plug the USB in, then go into bios, find the boot order menu and it should show up there along with your new drive..
Yiu then need to set it to boot from the USB

Carl Bailey · 28 Dec 2018 at 15:40

The USB is showing in the boot menu, but, it's not large enough to hold the windows media creation content, I've ordered a large enough USB but once it's on the stick I just plug it in and it magically boots into windows once I've set it as boot priority #1?

Jasoncmor · 28 Dec 2018 at 16:51

Stupid question, but have you reinstalled windows on the new 1tb hard drive?

Carl Bailey · 28 Dec 2018 at 22:50

That's what I'm trying to achieve, without windows installed I cant properly access the hardrive due to me being stuck in bios on every boot. I could install the media content via a laptop to the drive externally but have no cable to do so.

freddie64 · 29 Dec 2018 at 08:08

What motherboard have you got?

Usually you plug the USB into your PC. Then when you turn the PC on, press F11 (may be different for your mobo) a few times and it should bring a boot menu. Choose your USB and it should start the installation process.

EDIT

Start pressing F11 as soon as you turn the PC on.

Carl Bailey · 29 Dec 2018 at 12:33

The motherboard is an asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 DDR3 Mini ITX.

So here's the plan.
- Install and extract https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO to a USB.
- Boot the PC into bios and select the USB as the main boot priority.
- Refresh the PC and . . . It should automatically run in windows 10?

chippy08 · 29 Dec 2018 at 13:08

Carl Bailey said:
The motherboard is an asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 DDR3 Mini ITX.

So here's the plan.
- Install and extract https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10ISO to a USB.
- Boot the PC into bios and select the USB as the main boot priority.
- Refresh the PC and . . . It should automatically run in windows 10?

Correct just make sure you tell Bios to save changes on exit.

freddie64 · 29 Dec 2018 at 15:14

Had a look at you manual and this is what i would do. (Use F8 for your mobo)

1 - Create Windows USB installation using the link you posted.

2 - Plug the USB stick into your PC and turn it on. As soon as you see the ASUS logo start pressing F8 to bring up the Boot Options and select your USB stick.

3 - install Windows to the HDD.

If you do it this way you can leave boot priorities as your HDD in bios and it will only use the USB the one time.

Link for your manual in case you don't have it.

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1150/H81I-PLUS/E8425_H81I_PLUS.pdf