Laptop won't boot with fresh installation of Windows 10

Megahertz said:

Is the original HDD a Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT?
How did you install on the SSD Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT?
Did you deleted all partitions till you had one and only one unallocated space and then proceeded?
Is Secure boot disabled on BIOS?

Boot from the original HDD and post a Disk manager image of the disk
How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management

If the original HDD is UEFI-GPT and you installed as Legacy- MBR (or vice versa) it can explain the issue.

Here's the requestions screenshot:


The original HDD seems to be a UEFI-GPT, I originally reformatted the SSD as UEFI-GPT and then when I got into the windows boot device menu I deleted all existing partitions and clicked new to remake them. Secure boot is disabled in the bios.

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MisterEd said:

According to the specs I read the laptop has two 2.5-inch SATA connectors. One is for the hard drive while the second is for the DVD drive. There are no M.2 connectors. Is this correct?

I assume the new SSD was a 2.5-inch SATA one and you had it in an external enclosure when you cloned the hard drive.

The software I use can clone from a larger drive to a smaller one. The important thing to remember is that the spaced used on the larger drive must be less than the size of the smaller one.

Drive 1 size=1TB, used =512GB
Drive 2 size=1TB, used =100GB
Drive 3 size=256GB

In this example Drive 1 couldn't be cloned to Drive 3 because it would not fit.
However, Drive 2 could be cloned to Drive 3 because it would fit.

When you did a clean install of Windows 10 on the SSD I assume it was installed in the computer and the hard drive was removed. Since you had a failed clone you should have done a custom installation and chose to delete all existing partitions on the SSD before installing Windows 10 on it.

On my model there is an m.2 connector for an nvme, however it's unoccupied at the moment as the new SSD connects via SATA like the HDD. Your assumption is correct for the cloning, I have an EZ dock that I connected to another computer and use various programs like macrium reflect and easeus to clone.

When the clone gave me a blue screen, I did choose custom installation and deleted all existing partitions on the SSD, nothing seems to be working and I don't think it's the SSD due to it working fine on other computers.

The only thing I can think of is that the laptop has a safety feature built in to stop it from booting from non factory storage devices. However, I disproved this when I booted it up with another laptop's HDD (it wasn't a fresh installation or anything I literally took another laptop's working HDD and put it in) and it booted up.

Also, I'd like to note that the original 1TB HDD had been factory reset through windows previously so barely any of the storage is occupied.

You said you used another computer to do the cloning. Is there reason you didn't do the cloning on the computer with the hard drive.

Tuesday I replaced a Seagate SATA 1TB hard drive with a Samsung 870 EVO SATA 1TB SSD. This is what I did.

Mounted SATA SSD in SATA/USB enclosure
Plugged enclosure into USB port on computer
Booted USB flash drive with the cloning program
Selected cloning option
Source drive: 1TB hard drive
Destination drive: 1TB SSD

When it was done I removed the hard drive and replaced it with the SSD.
It took a while to boot the first time but was pretty fast after that.
The restart time went from about 284 seconds (with hard drive) to about 95 seconds (with SSD).

BTW, this was an old computer I had built in 2011.

The only time I had a problem with cloning was with a computer with more than one drive. I think the problem was I had originally installed Windows with all drives connected. I could never clone the SSD boot drive successfully. I ended up do a clean install of Windows 10.

MisterEd said:

You said you used another computer to do the cloning. Is there reason you didn't do the cloning on the computer with the hard drive.

Tuesday I replaced a Seagate SATA 1TB hard drive with a Samsung 870 EVO SATA 1TB SSD. This is what I did.

Mounted SATA SSD in SATA/USB enclosure
Plugged enclosure into USB port on computer
Booted USB flash drive with the cloning program
Selected cloning option
Source drive: 1TB hard drive
Destination drive: 1TB SSD

When it was done I removed the hard drive and replaced it with the SSD.
It took a while to boot the first time but was pretty fast after that.
The restart time went from about 284 seconds (with hard drive) to about 95 seconds (with SSD).

It's cause the original laptop is pretty slow so I opted to do it on my pc which is much more powerful. I do think that I attempted the clone from the original laptop multiple times after the first attempt didn't work from my pc.

See if you can create a bootable windows 10 iso > perform a clean install windows 10 20H2 > boot > report results

Your original HDD is UEFI-GPT so you should install Win 10 on the SSD the same way.
I would try to start over. Don't use another computer. Do it all on the laptop.

Windows can be installed in two ways: Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
To install as Legacy-MBR you must boot the installation drive as Legacy
To install as UEFI-GPT you must boot the installation drive as UEFI.

You should install as UEFI-GPT
Detach any other drives from the laptop.

During POST, press F? to launch the boot menu. You will see two options for the USB drive. USB UEFI (Name) and USB (Name). Select USB UEFI (Name).
Go to install and delete ALL partitions on the SSD till you have one and only one unallocated space and then proceed.
If you don't want to use MS account, don't enable updates or connect to the internet during installation.

Megahertz said:

Your original HDD is UEFI-GPT so you should install Win 10 on the SSD the same way.
I would try to start over. Don't use another computer. Do it all on the laptop.

Windows can be installed in two ways: Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
To install as Legacy-MBR you must boot the installation drive as Legacy
To install as UEFI-GPT you must boot the installation drive as UEFI.

You should install as UEFI-GPT
Detach any other drives from the laptop.

During POST, press F? to launch the boot menu. You will see two options for the USB drive. USB UEFI (Name) and USB (Name). Select USB UEFI (Name).
Go to install and delete ALL partitions on the SSD till you have one and only one unallocated space and then proceed.
If you don't want to use MS account, don't enable updates or connect to the internet during installation.

See that's the problem, I have tried starting from scratch. The only reason I used the other computer was because the way you're suggesting didn't work. I've tried it multiple times this week with no change. If it is an I/O error like the others suggested, could it still be an issue during the installation?

You can try this trick.
- Install the SSD on your desktop.
- Detach all other drives (SATA o power cable) from the MB.
- Boot from the Win 10 installation drive as UEFI.
- Select to install on the SSD.
- After copying the files it will reboot from the SSD. When it shuts down to reboot, shut it down before it boots.
- Remove the SSD and install on the laptop.
- Boot it and it will begin the installation.

Megahertz said:

You can try this trick.
- Install the SSD on your desktop.
- Detach all other drives (SATA o power cable) from the MB.
- Boot from the Win 10 installation drive as UEFI.
- Select to install on the SSD.
- After copying the files it will reboot from the SSD. When it shuts down to reboot, shut it down before it boots.
- Remove the SSD and install on the laptop.
- Boot it and it will begin the installation.

I've tried this before and it, unfortunately, doesn't work, I get the same error.

If in bios SATA mode is configured for RAID mode then try AHCI mode.

itsme1 said:

If in bios SATA mode is configured for RAID mode then try AHCI mode.

It's already in AHCI mode and it doesn't let me change it regardless. Locked by the laptop bios I'm guessing.