OS corrupted + clean installation woes

GloriousPurpose said:

The only other SSD I have is my 1tb gaming library that has about 150gb of free space, and the other 850gb is used up. I couldn't install anything on it because of the GPT style thing unless I wiped it. No can do.

Right now I'm looking into how to create a bootable flash drive for 21H1 with "Rufus" without MS's help. Good thing I have a couple spare ones. Either that or fork out 20 bucks to buy a 5-pack of dual layer blank dvds to fit the 5.5gb ISO.

No. You don't want it on DVD. Wow. I can't believe Win 10 21H1 (reminds me of a virus) has so much bloatware that you can't even fit it on one single DVD. I've done installations either way. I'm not sure why I prefer the disc method. Probably force of habit, or, probably because I still own hundreds of blank discs. Question: Have you tried disabling CSM and booting without it? Question #2: Have you tried clearing your secure boot keys? (You can always re-activate them after.) Question #3: Do you have a spare system image that you already made on a separate drive? One more question: Humor me. I'm old and forgetful. Is this SSD Nvme? And did you get a message stating that your partitions were not in the correct order? If so, that's a nasty one. You may very well need to reinstall your o/s if this is the case.

SCANNERMAN said:

No. You don't want it on DVD

Why not?

SCANNERMAN said:

Question: Have you tried disabling CSM and booting without it? Question #2: Have you tried clearing your secure boot keys? (You can always re-activate them after.)

I have no idea what either of those are, and I'm not touching them.

SCANNERMAN said:

Question #3: Do you have a spare system image that you already made on a separate drive?

Yes and no. I do remember making an image over a year ago, but for some reason when it was finished, it was invisible. Couldn't find it even with hidden items turned on. Yet I saw "something" taking up over 100gb of space on that drive. Just couldn't find where.

SCANNERMAN said:

Is this SSD Nvme? And did you get a message stating that your partitions were not in the correct order?

A) no idea. B) no.

@SCANNERMAN

I was coming in to say that downloading 21H1 and trying to use that to "refresh" was a bust. Rufus did the job in creating the installation flash just fine. But didn't give me the option to do anything other than clean-install. So I might as well go with 21H2 and be done with it so I can at least get all the latest necessary drivers.

I've already backed up most of the files I need from the crashed OS (User/Public folders, Program Files x64/x86). But there's also some settings saved in the ProgramData directory. I can't back those up because the folder is hidden and I couldn't see it when file-browsing via Notepad.

I'll get my banking done today and tomorrow, and then later in the day tomorrow I'll have to finally get this done.

Tell me what you're thinking anyway, there's no such thing as bad knowledge.

BTW this is what I see every time I boot that PC with the flash in UEFI. The MSI logo all squished together showing for about 20-30 seconds before it finally initializes the installation screen. First time I saw it I almost had a heart attack, I was like "JFC it's gonna blow up!!!". Why the hell does it do that??

AddRAM said:

Since you have no idea what you are doing, maybe you should take it to a friend who knows what he`s doing, or worse yet a shop where they claim they know what they`re doing.
When someone here tells you to unplug the power cables from any and all other drives, you should listen and do as they ask. Or you are wasting yours and their time.

That is good, honest advice. Meh, he's learning. We're having fun, yes?

@SCANNERMAN

re: PT1, what you said makes zero sense to me. I don't see why having 2 different drives with OS installations would cause a successful reparation of the bad one. They wouldn't be the same OS version anyway. Bad one is 21H1, new one would be 21H2.

I actually can fully backup my gaming library across 2 different drives, with a total of about 2.5tb free space available. But I would do no such thing unless I was 100% positive it would work. Anyhow I haven't installed or reinstalled anything yet. So right now, the only OS in "that" PC is the bad one.

So let me get this straight. You want me to

1. disconnect the 256gb SSD with the bad OS.
2. backup my gaming library from the 1tb SSD onto other drives.
3. clean-install 21H2 on the 1tb SSD.
4. then you say "reconnect the mega drive" which is an oxymoron because the only mega drive is the 1tb SSD.

Unless you mean the 256gb SSD with the bad OS, in which case proceeding to

5. leave the cleanly-installed 21H2 1tb SSD as-is, shut PC down + reconnect 256gb SSD with bad OS and turn PC on.
6. If it asks for repair, give it the installation media & proceed

So why would that fix anything? Would it just mix & match bits and pieces from the 2 installations to make the bad one whole again?

Makes 0 sense. Unless the boot-or-whatever partition is separate from the rest of the OS, and the clean-install of the new OS repairs & overwrites the bad one, allowing the bad one to boot into desktop again finally.

re: PT2, like I said I've already backed up most of the needed files from the bad OS. So I can go ahead and reinstall anytime. Anytime after tomorrow daytime anyway. I'm just hoping I discover another way in the meantime.

- - - Updated - - -

@AddRAM well if you paid attention to where I said I'm a novice when it comes to this, you'd get why I don't just take the word of everyone who just tells me what to do without explaining the significance of specific steps.

"disconnect all other drives" - WHY?

A new forum user doesn't automatically become a tech savant as soon as he/she signs up. There's different levels of experience. I am pretty much down there at the bottom, that's why I ask lots of questions and ask for people to elaborate.

If you find explaining things to be a waste of time, then maybe you're in the wrong forum.

Easy now. I thought you stated you had a 6 TB SSD. If all you're running for an o/s is on a lil 256 GB drive you can pop that in any PC with a functional o/s and drag and drop your personal files off of it. TONS less to worry about. If your 1TB is simply a storage drive then leave it be. BUT... IF you can scrounge up another drive that you can afford to reformat and reinstall your favourite flavour of Win 10 *cough* (almost said Windows Distro there — better watch it.) then by all means, reinstall your Win 10 on a fresh drive. Yes, leave the cleanly installed 21H2 on whatever you decided to install it on, shut down, reconnect your defunct drive, and reboot. If it asks for a repair proceed. Does it make sense? A: Of course not. This is Windows 10 we are talking about. Since when does Windows 10 make sense? All I can say is this method worked for me twice on two different PCs. I didn't even need to save files but I did anyway to be safe. Of course you will need to choose between which one you want to keep after. I think it's a no brainer. But this is one way to ensure you have all your important files before you reformat the gibbled drive. I don't care what you do now because you already have your stuff saved somewhere else.

Absolutely disconnect all other drives when running a fresh installation of Windows whenever possible. You can always reconnect them after you are done. Why? Because you can corrupt data otherwise. Because Windows has this nasty habit of altering other drives on installation. Because you could have a different kind of nasty on one of those other drives which could re-infect your fresh install in which case you would be finished before you started. Or, you could have a hardware issue that may or may not be affecting your graphics or some other such thing when you use a USB stick that could jump to another drive and mess things up for you all over again. Because *stuff* happens... By keeping it simple and just running the bare essentials you greatly reduce the risk of bad stuff happening. It really is sound advice.

Yup it really does seem to mix and match bits and pieces from the two to make the bad one whole again. I don't know why this is the case. I've done it twice. If it doesn't work for you then nothing is lost. You still have all your files. Anyway, it sounds as if there's no danger in you losing any essential data as it is. I would still recommend disconnecting that gaming library of yours first before installing Windows. But hey, it's your PC. By now you should know Windows can be pretty fickle at times. In fact, this is your big opportunity to install Windows 10 on a nice, fast NVMe for better performance. I recommend 1TB but do what you like. The world is your mollusk.

GloriousPurpose said:

"disconnect all other drives" - WHY?

A new forum user doesn't automatically become a tech savant as soon as he/she signs up. There's different levels of experience. I am pretty much down there at the bottom, that's why I ask lots of questions and ask for people to elaborate.

Some people recommend disconnecting other internal drives because if one of them has a pre-existing system partition Windows 10/11 setup will attempt to use it instead of placing the system partition on the drive you are installing to. I am the dissenting opinion. I do not disconnect other external drives. Never have. Hundreds of Windows 10/11 installs and never a problem. However, if by chance the system partition does end up on a different drive, it takes me less time to fix the system partition issue than it does to disconnect and reconnect internal disk drives - especially when they are M.2 SSDs buried inside a laptop.

Now - disconnect all unneeded USB peripherals including external storage devices, yes, I will agree to that.