Somehow I seem to have destroyed my Windows installation... Need help!

yannis76 · 27 Nov 2023 at 22:29

Hi,
I recently decided to make an upgrade and got new mobo and CPU. The upgrade was from an Asrock Z370M Pro4 to an Asus Z790M Prime Plus D4 plus a new CPU.
Previousy I had my Windows in an nvme drive and that worked great on old pc. However when I put the windows drive to the new motherboard, it doesn't find any windows installation disk!! While using a USB Windows setup key I can use the command prompt and see the files of the nvme windows drive are still there. However windows cannot find any windows installation there!! Any idea how to fix this?
How can I repair this drive?
Furthermore there were several restore points in my disks but Windows setup key doesn't find any...

thanks

something daft already!! · 27 Nov 2023 at 22:32

Have you set the NVME drive as the boot drive in BIOS?

yannis76 · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:02

something daft already!! said:
Have you set the NVME drive as the boot drive in BIOS?

It is not possible to do it. MB recognizes the drive, but in the boot menu the nvme drive cannot be found!

Mujja · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:09

While booted from the USB select the nvme drive and list partitions

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk ?
list partitions

This should show what's missing. Fir GPT you only need two partitions. We can recreate any missing partitions and copy the bout files over.

I'll reply in the morning with the steps

Mel_P · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:09

From Windows search "It is not recommended to use your current Windows installation with a new motherboard, as Windows is not designed to be moved from one motherboard to another 1. You will almost always have to reinstall Windows when you replace the motherboard, unless you buy the exact same model motherboard 1. If you want to keep and use your current Windows installation, programs and settings after changing your motherboard, you have to “tell” Windows to use the Standard SATA hard disk controller driver at Windows boot 1.

Not how you would do this "tell....."?

Mel

yannis76 · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:43

ok made some progress and nvme is finally recognized as boot drive thanks to this link:

NvME as Boot device

Hi I have asus rog strix b450-f board. I have added 2 x NvME Drives. neither of these seem to be able to be set as the BOOT Device, i have also tried the 2 NvME as a RAID again cannot boot from this. is this normal? if so what is the point of adding NvME on a motherboard if its not possible...

rog-forum.asus.com

Problem now that I get a blue screen saying that my windows drive needs repair as it cannot find the winload.exe

yannis76 · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:45

Mel_P said:
From Windows search "It is not recommended to use your current Windows installation with a new motherboard, as Windows is not designed to be moved from one motherboard to another 1. You will almost always have to reinstall Windows when you replace the motherboard, unless you buy the exact same model motherboard 1. If you want to keep and use your current Windows installation, programs and settings after changing your motherboard, you have to “tell” Windows to use the Standard SATA hard disk controller driver at Windows boot 1.

Not how you would do this "tell....."?

Mel

Well according to Microsoft, Windows 10 should be able to recognize the new mobo, especially if its from Intel to another Intel...

yannis76 · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:47

This is the message I receive now:

Your PC couldnt start properly
The header checksum for this file doesn't match the computed checksum
File:\windows\system32\winload.exe
Error code: 0xc0000221
You will need to use recovery tools...

yannis76 · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:48

Mujja said:
While booted from the USB select the nvme drive and list partitions

Diskpart
List disk
Select disk ?
list partitions

This should show what's missing. Fir GPT you only need two partitions. We can recreate any missing partitions and copy the bout files over.

I'll reply in the morning with the steps

Thanks I am creating a windows boot usb key with Rufus. Maybe it will prove useful

Mujja · 27 Nov 2023 at 23:54

Once you've booted using that USB there is an option to run repair tools

yannis76 · 28 Nov 2023 at 06:49

Good morning! I finally managed to enter my windows disk, but there are still errors. Intel me or intel drivers cannot be loaded and in device manager there are several not installed items (usb etc). I tried to update the ME drivers but get a fatal installation error and when I tried updating through the intel app I got a blue screen.

darael · 28 Nov 2023 at 08:22

Download wushowhide - MajorGeeks

wushowhide is a troubleshooting app from Microsoft that allows you to show or hide Windows Updates. wushowhide is no longer available from Microsoft. See our video tutorial for more information.

www.majorgeeks.com

That's what I used to stop Windows 10 upgrading itself say from 19H1 to 21H1 - I don't see why it shouldn't block Windows 11 updates either. You might need to repeat it a couple of times, but I always found removing the update files with BleachBit before restarting Windows stopped the update in it's tracks too - just make sure you use the above software to block the update as soon as the machine is restarted.

AthlonXP1800 · 28 Nov 2023 at 10:29

yannis76 said:
Good morning! I finally managed to enter my windows disk, but there are still errors. Intel me or intel drivers cannot be loaded and in device manager there are several not installed items (usb etc). I tried to update the ME drivers but get a fatal installation error and when I tried updating through the intel app I got a blue screen.

You had older Intel ME 11 drivers installed that only worked for your old motherboard Asrock Z370M Pro4 with old ME 11 firmware, they both cannot be update to latest ME version so it only worked with version 11. Your new motherboard Asus Z790M Prime Plus D4 Plus used Intel ME version 16 drivers and firmware so it best to uninstall ME 11 drivers then download and install ME 16 drivers and update ME firmware to latest version.

ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4 - Micro ATX Motherboard | Motherboards | ASUS UK

ASUS Prime Z790M-PLUS D4, an Intel Z790 LGA 1700 mATX motherboard with PCIe® 5.0, three M.2 slots, 10+1 DrMOS, DDR4, Intel® 1 Gb LAN, HDMI®, DP, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C®, front USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C®, Thunderbolt™ (USB4®) support, Arua Sync

www.asus.com

Murphy · 28 Nov 2023 at 11:15

darael said:
Download wushowhide - MajorGeeks

wushowhide is a troubleshooting app from Microsoft that allows you to show or hide Windows Updates. wushowhide is no longer available from Microsoft. See our video tutorial for more information.

www.majorgeeks.com

That's what I used to stop Windows 10 upgrading itself say from 19H1 to 21H1 - I don't see why it shouldn't block Windows 11 updates either. You might need to repeat it a couple of times, but I always found removing the update files with BleachBit before restarting Windows stopped the update in it's tracks too - just make sure you use the above software to block the update as soon as the machine is restarted.

Had to deal trying to hide some Windows updates myself recently and found wushowhide a bit lacking so i gave...

PSWindowsUpdate 2.2.0.3

This module contain cmdlets to manage Windows Update Client.

www.powershellgallery.com

A go and found it to do a much better job WRT hiding updates, if you know the KB article number before running Windows update it's just a matter of opening a powershell window and typing 'Hide-WindowsUpdate -KBArticleID KB4023057, KB5001716' or whatever the KB number is.

yannis76 · 28 Nov 2023 at 19:00

Hi again,

I managed to use an older restore point and I am back into Windows... for a while and again another blue screen. There is no way I can repair those flies/disk and now decide to install Windows 10 Pro to an older SSD disk I had and at least test the system from a hardware perspective. If that goes succesfully and Windows run well on this disk, can I check the older Windows drives?

yannis76 · 28 Nov 2023 at 21:47

Well it seems, the solution was just in front of me... I was suspecting the memory, as the errors were random and also had the impression that they were less at 2133. So I checked the manual again and voilaaaa!! I had put the memory dimms on the wrong slots. I also upgraded the bios to thelatest one and everything seems fine so far...