Windows 10 boot error

Over Black Friday weekend, I decided to buy an ssd. I installed it and used a program called macrium reflect to clone my hdd to my ssd to get windows on the ssd and be able to boot from it. All went well as I had just restarted my pc on the hdd before the clone process. I was successfully able to boot my pc with the ssd but I wanted to be able to wipe my old hdd since I could free up a few gbs since I only needed the os on the ssd. I wiped it and restarted my pc only to find a blue screen. One that says “RECOVERY”, a required device isn’t connected or cannot be accessed. Press enter to try again, F1 to enter recovery environment etc. non of which work. I have tried to load an iso onto a usb drive but I cannot get my pc to boot from it as it just gets a black screen with a blinking white cursor on the top left of the screen.

Specs:
- Z390 aorus pro
- i5 9600k
- gtx 1060 6gb

The blinking white cursor means that you created the USB flash drive incorrectly. What did you use to make it with? Rufus?

Veast said:

I installed it and used a program called macrium reflect to clone my hdd to my ssd to get windows on the ssd and be able to boot from it.

All went well as I had just restarted my pc on the hdd before the clone process. I was successfully able to boot my pc with the ssd but I wanted to be able to wipe my old hdd since I could free up a few gbs since I only needed the os on the ssd.

I wiped it and restarted my pc only to find a blue screen. One that says “RECOVERY”, a required device isn’t connected or cannot be accessed. Press enter to try again, F1 to enter recovery environment etc. non of which work.

I have tried to load an iso onto a usb drive but I cannot get my pc to boot from it as it just gets a black screen with a blinking white cursor on the top left of the screen.

"a required device isn’t connected or cannot be accessed" will also net that blinking cursor since the BIOS can not find a bootable drive.

Anyway, when you re-booted the PC the first time after cloning the drive was the old drive still installed? And are you sure the boot was off the SSD drive?

Here's the first thing you can try - double check the BIOS to make sure the SSD drive is the first drive in the boot order (though I doubt that's the issue).

What may have happened is during the cloning process not all partitions were copied to the SSD and thus some critical files were left off the drive. That when you booted the first time, it's possible you were still been booting off the old drive, thus giving a false sense all was well. When you wiped the old drive, being the old drive doesn't have all the required boot files, is most probably why you are where you are now.

That said a few other questions to clear things up...

• Is this a SATA or NVMe SSD drive?
• And yes, how did you prepare the USB drive?

Let us know?

I used two methods to put the iso onto the usb, since I own a Mac and not another pc at my house I had to use boot camp assistant, and then the terminal/cmd.

I must add that the white blinking cursor only appears even when both the drives are disconnected and only the usb is connected. Also the usb drive is detected by my motherboard.

No way to tell if the ssd was the drive that was booted, but I did select it to boot off of my motherboards boot menu. However, now I’m aware that the motherboard may well have skipped it and gone to the next boot process (hdd).

And the ssd is a sata ssd. Tomorrow I will try a disk with windows to try and have that work as I believe I’m having issues creating the usb since I have to do that step on a Mac. Thanks for the help so far.

These are some links for creating a bootable Windows 10 iso:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10
Download Windows 10 ISO File
Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10

Veast said:

I must add that the white blinking cursor only appears even when both the drives are disconnected and only the usb is connected. Also the usb drive is detected by my motherboard.

The blinking cursor is going to be there regardless because the BIOS can not find a boot drive. And yes, it is possible for a motherboard recognize a drive without having the ability to boot from it. It's simply saying I see the drive but can't boot from it.

Veast said:

No way to tell if the ssd was the drive that was booted, but I did select it to boot off of my motherboards boot menu. However, now I’m aware that the motherboard may well have skipped it and gone to the next boot process (hdd).

Yes, this is very likely what happened; especially given the system won't boot after wiping the HDD drive.

Veast said:

I used two methods to put the iso onto the usb, since I own a Mac and not another pc at my house I had to use boot camp assistant, and then the terminal/cmd.

Not familiar with Mac and all its machinations but you could try this tutorial here - Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10. It also provides instructions for RuFus if you wish to go that route.

BTW did you backup your data? And are you trying to recover the drive's content? I ask because the above process will wipe the drives content.

@NavyLCDR is far better at diagnosing and recovering drives than me so perhaps he can chime in on this.

If you can get into the system enough to post a screenshot of disk management of the SSD, that would help.
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of

sygnus21 said:

The blinking cursor is going to be there regardless because the BIOS can not find a boot drive. And yes, it is possible for a motherboard recognize a drive without having the ability to boot from it. It's simply saying I see the drive but can't boot from it.



Yes, this is very likely what happened; especially given the system won't boot after wiping the HDD drive.



Not familiar with Mac and all its machinations but you could try this tutorial here - Create Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10. It also provides instructions for RuFus if you wish to go that route.

BTW did you backup your data? And are you trying to recover the drive's content? I ask because the above process will wipe the drives content.

@NavyLCDR is far better at diagnosing and recovering drives than me so perhaps he can chime in on this.

I did not back up my data however I am totally fine with losing it as all I had was games and a few files of personal belongings. Thanks I will be trying the Rufus method today as well.

Veast said:

I did not back up my data however I am totally fine with losing it as all I had was games and a few files of personal belongings. Thanks I will be trying the Rufus method today as well.

So wait... to be clear, as I assumed this was the OS drive that's causing problems, and thus why you can't boot, right?

Which means that providing a Disk Management screen shot is impossible since you can't boot into the PC, right?

We need to be clear as to what the issue is - can you or can you not boot into the PC?

And I'm not advertising Rufus, I've never used or needed it to create a bootable USB drive. I just mentioned it because it's now part of the tutorial for those who actually prefer to use it. I don't.

If you made the Macrium Reflect rescue media you can try this. Use Macrium Reflect Rescue Media to Fix Windows Boot Issues