My PC Win10 won't post up and gives no beeps -how to find the culprit

It looks like your motherboard is fine since you can boot to the BIOS. I still suspect a faulty device connected to the PC may have caused the original problem. It would be wise to track down the culprit.

Have you now wiped your hard drive? If so, I would create a partition on it and use chkdsk <drivename> /f with the disk connected to your laptop. See Drive Error Checking in Windows 10

If you think the disk is healthy, then you could restore the Acronis backup you have (but is it Windows 10)? However, you might be better off doing a new clean install of Windows 10 on the disc, reinstall your programs and recover your data from back up. Windows 10 should automatically activate on your PC provided you previously had an activated Windows 10 PC. I recommend downloading the ISO file and doing a clean install from that. Do Step 3 in Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First

Kbird,
I assume that you missed two recent updates I made where I describe getting the Mb to post up and load various cds and DVD utilities and Windows installation disk-and failed yet failed to install.

But to answer your question, it it's an onboard graphics chip, not a card.

Does your comments about the CPU still pertain considering my recent updates about getting installation disks to run?

Thanks,
Rollo

Kbird said:

It's called The Bios , (UEFI or Legacy) , sometimes you see the Bios Post info if the Bios post screen is disabled at boot.

Have you swapped out the graphics card for another or used the onboard GFX if their is one? that would eliminate the GFX card as the issue

next in line would be the CPU , it is unlikely you have spare to test with but , you could pull the heatsink/fan and see if you can see anything burnt out visually (diode/resistor) perhaps ask local store if they would test CPU for you , might mean you have to buy new from them? maybe time for an upgrade anyway? I have seen this before with dead CPU's where board will power on but get no further.

KB

Rollo said:

Kbird,
I assume that you missed two recent updates I made where I describe getting the Mb to post up and load various cds and DVD utilities and Windows installation disk-and failed yet failed to install.

But to answer your question, it it's an onboard graphics chip, not a card.

Does your comments about the CPU still pertain considering my recent updates about getting installation disks to run?

Thanks,
Rollo

Yep was very late , but I admit this is weird as from your previous information ( do we know the whole story ? :) ) , it would not post , and inserting a new HD should not of changed that , even if the old HD was dead it will usually at least post and give you an error message about no Boot disk or something similar. Newer MBs have an LED for the Bootdisk too if the MB can't find it especially in UEFI Bios's.

You don't need to do anything to a new HDD when install Windows 10 , it will do all the appropriate Disk partitioning as needed for UEFI Bios and GPT or MBR etc , and it best to let it do it from a Clean unallocated disk , I am not sure with AU ISO Install disk but in the past Win10 wouldn't alter the partitions if it though you were upgrading , though it may add a Recovery partition then too (450mb) . I would do a Clean install from an initialized disk with no partitions and let win10 set itself up as needed and once installed recover your Data and files by mounting the Acronis Images and restoring Files as needed.

you may need to check your MB manual for info on enabling/disabling CSM or if you are doing a pure UEFI boot , in pure UEFI the disk needs to be GPT but with CSM enabled with the right options a Bois/MBR boot should work fine, it will use a GPT disk this was too, i would use GPT if possible.

I am out most of the Day , so hopefully others can help if needed.

If you are not worried about the data loss while installing OS.,
1. Choose repair your computer after booting from CD or Press Shift + F9 on disk selection (where to install windows).
2. Type following commands in cmd
>diskpart
>list disk
>Select disk (number) Here is number of your selected disk.. on which you want to install windows
>Clean all

Now you can install windows on the disk

Thanks for your messages and patience. I left a message for you all at the end of this thread.
Rollo

manish9009 said:

If you are not worried about the data loss while installing OS.,
1. Choose repair your computer after booting from CD or Press Shift + F9 on disk selection (where to install windows).
2. Type following commands in cmd
>diskpart
>list disk
>Select disk (number) Here is number of your selected disk.. on which you want to install windows
>Clean all

Now you can install windows on the disk

Thanks for your messages and patience. I left a message for you all at the end of this thread.
Rollo

Kbird said:

Yep was very late , but I admit this is weird as from your previous information ( do we know the whole story ? :) ) , it would not post , and inserting a new HD should not of changed that , even if the old HD was dead it will usually at least post and give you an error message about no Boot disk or something similar. Newer MBs have an LED for the Bootdisk too if the MB can't find it especially in UEFI Bios's.

You don't need to do anything to a new HDD when install Windows 10 , it will do all the appropriate Disk partitioning as needed for UEFI Bios and GPT or MBR etc , and it best to let it do it from a Clean unallocated disk , I am not sure with AU ISO Install disk but in the past Win10 wouldn't alter the partitions if it though you were upgrading , though it may add a Recovery partition then too (450mb) . I would do a Clean install from an initialized disk with no partitions and let win10 set itself up as needed and once installed recover your Data and files by mounting the Acronis Images and restoring Files as needed.

you may need to check your MB manual for info on enabling/disabling CSM or if you are doing a pure UEFI boot , in pure UEFI the disk needs to be GPT but with CSM enabled with the right options a Bois/MBR boot should work fine, it will use a GPT disk this was too, i would use GPT if possible.

I am out most of the Day , so hopefully others can help if needed.

Thanks for your messages and patience. I left a message for you all at the end of this thread.
Rollo

Kbird said:

Yep was very late , but I admit this is weird as from your previous information ( do we know the whole story ? :) ) , it would not post , and inserting a new HD should not of changed that , even if the old HD was dead it will usually at least post and give you an error message about no Boot disk or something similar. Newer MBs have an LED for the Bootdisk too if the MB can't find it especially in UEFI Bios's.

You don't need to do anything to a new HDD when install Windows 10 , it will do all the appropriate Disk partitioning as needed for UEFI Bios and GPT or MBR etc , and it best to let it do it from a Clean unallocated disk , I am not sure with AU ISO Install disk but in the past Win10 wouldn't alter the partitions if it though you were upgrading , though it may add a Recovery partition then too (450mb) . I would do a Clean install from an initialized disk with no partitions and let win10 set itself up as needed and once installed recover your Data and files by mounting the Acronis Images and restoring Files as needed.

you may need to check your MB manual for info on enabling/disabling CSM or if you are doing a pure UEFI boot , in pure UEFI the disk needs to be GPT but with CSM enabled with the right options a Bois/MBR boot should work fine, it will use a GPT disk this was too, i would use GPT if possible.

I am out most of the Day , so hopefully others can help if needed.

Rollo said:

To Kbird, Mannish and Steve:

Update#3
I understand that it should have posted up even without a hard drive and I can't explain that. But it does leave me suspicious about the motherboard.

So I remounted the new hd on the laptop and copied test files to and from it and it is in good shape.
I reseated the RAM. I switched to a alternate data cable going into the hard drive but I couldn't see where it connects to the motherboard so I couldn't move it to a different socket, if such a thing is possible.

So I can't acount for how putting a hd in place gave me access to the uefi

But following the advice that window 10 prefers to install on a raw unallocated I wiped it clean.
I attempted to install Windows 10 onto it and for the first time I didn't get usual error messages, so I thought I was home free. Then I got an error message claiming that Windows didn't have sufficient files to complete the install.

So I tried again and this time added what I thought was the proper license key and it failed to accept it. So I clicked on I do not have the key. By the way this time I connected the ethernet to the machine and so maybe it was able to acquire some needed files from the Internet, although that hasn't happened before I have installed Windows on a half-dozen machines.

Anyway, after 2 1/2 days I finally got Windows 10 installed onto a hard drive. Now I just have to mount my Acronis image onto the D Drive where it resided before this disaster and delete the Windows installation on the C Drive.

I hope I don't have any problems with that.

Time will tell if this is all stable or another fluke.


Enough for me tonite!

You have not updated you Profile , so we have no idea of you Hardware or Motherboard but it is possible on newer Boards for there to be a SATA Error which can stop the boot dead , on my new computer , there is a LED on the MB for that and a 3 digit Code readout too to tell if something like this happens.

Yes the MB will have 4-8 different Ports for the SATA cables , for HDD/SSD/DVD's etc so swapping them around is possible.

Windows 10 does not need a Key , if fact you don't get but a generic one everyone gets if you upgraded from Win7/8 , so just skip that and it will activate by itself once it has Inet access , as your activation is tied to your Motherboard. I have found on one machine that it would not re-install until I reconnected the inet per how it was connected the 1st time I activated that Motherboard, in that case the 1st time it was connect via wifi, 2nd time via ethernet and once I switched the wifi back on it would install.

It sounds like Acronis has corrupted the MBR or something else, did you just mount the image or did you restore the Image? if you did a restore you have likely damaged the Win10 MBR as the Clean install of 10 would of repartitioned the drive differently than what was in the Acronis Image. A startup Repair may find the new Win10 partition and reset it for you ?

If all else fails Wipe the NEW Hdrive and just install Win10 Clean again..... maybe faster and easier and less frustrating at this point.

KB.