Help! Login has disappeared when I boot

ship69 said:

I'm afraid you've totally lost me now. Where would I get a chip-set driver or mSata driver on Samsung and how do I know if I've got the correct one? And what happens if I install the wrong one? (And do I need to install firmware too???)

I think my SSD is a "PM841" but I had a look online for my SSD on Samsung and couldn't find anything helpful - it was all deeply confusing. [grrr!]

It's asking for a driver that isn't already on the install DVD. I'm guessing, just guessing, its for the mSATA drive. The driver for that drive is actually a driver for the interface, not the drive itself. It's for the mSATA controller on the motherboard. Like I said though its honestly just a guess or hunch that that's what its wanting. Usually if its the driver for your USB optical drive that it wants it will say a "A required CD/DVD device driver is missing".

ship69 said:

So "diskpart" is part of Window itself and you access it through the command line, yes?
If so where would I access it from?
It seems to me that what I need either way is a driver for the SSD, no?

Or should I try to rebuild the Windows DVD again? Or try harder to get the Flash drive turned into Windows recovery drive.
I'm starting to run out of options!

Yes you open Command Prompt "as admin". Then just type diskpart and hit enter. Option 2 here, https://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...e-windows.html

alphanumeric said:

Yes you open Command Prompt "as admin". Then just type diskpart and hit enter. Option 2 here, https://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...e-windows.html

I know this will cause controversy, and I only mention it as an easy alternative that works. Rufus can quickly and safely create a bootable USB flash drive, without any command line work. It's only a suggestion, not meant to cause anything negative at all.

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

That may work. I think his issue was the MCT wouldn't use the thumb drive he had. Likely because it has a bit set to make it show as a Fixed disk instead of the normal Removable media. If that's true RUFUS will likely reject it also. The Windows 7 DVD download Tool will reject those thumb drives too. I have a couple of Sandisk drives that show up that way. The MCT and the 7 DVD tool won't use them. All my Kingston drives work just fine though.
I like using diskpart because I can make one drive and use it on both UEFI and Legacy. The downside of diskpart is if your not carful you can erase the wrong drive. I did try RUFUS a while back. It works but you can easily get a setting wrong and end up with a drive that doesn't work.
My ASUS laptop that is UEFI will boot from a Fat32 or NTFS formatted thumb drive and install in UEFI from either. Most PC's won't do that, they want Fat32 for UEFI installs.
My Wife's Acer is very fussy. The only thumb drive I could get it to boot from was one I did with diskpart. Any other way and it wouldn't boot off of it.

The other reason I like using diskpart is, with the MCT, if you want to create more than one thumb drive it wants to download the ISO fresh every time. You have to start over from the beginning each time. Big waist of time. I just download to an ISO file. Then use diskpart to create my thumb drives. I customize my install media to each PC and end up with a thumb drive for each PC. I use a PID.txt file to install the specific version of 10 I want and bypass the OEM keys.

alphanumeric said:

That may work. I think his issue was the MCT wouldn't use the thumb drive he had. Likely because it has a bit set to make it show as a Fixed disk instead of the normal Removable media. If that's true RUFUS will likely reject it also. The Windows 7 DVD download Tool will reject those thumb drives too. I have a couple of Sandisk drives that show up that way. The MCT and the 7 DVD tool won't use them. All my Kingston drives work just fine though.
I like using diskpart because I can make one drive and use it on both UEFI and Legacy. The downside of diskpart is if your not carful you can erase the wrong drive. I did try RUFUS a while back. It works but you can easily get a setting wrong and end up with a drive that doesn't work.
My ASUS laptop that is UEFI will boot from a Fat32 or NTFS formatted thumb drive and install in UEFI from either. Most PC's won't do that, they want Fat32 for UEFI installs.
My Wife's Acer is very fussy. The only thumb drive I could get it to boot from was one I did with diskpart. Any other way and it wouldn't boot off of it.

The other reason I like using diskpart is, with the MCT, if you want to create more than one thumb drive it wants to download the ISO fresh every time. You have to start over from the beginning each time. Big waist of time. I just download to an ISO file. Then use diskpart to create my thumb drives. I customize my install media to each PC and end up with a thumb drive for each PC. I use a PID.txt file to install the specific version of 10 I want and bypass the OEM keys.

All valid points. Just FYI....the latest version of Rufus has gotten a lot smarter and will default to proper settings based on the ISO chosen and OS of the box. Not totally foolproof, nothing is, but real close.

That "removable" bit can get messed up real bad if you try to take a brand new thumb (default factory FAT32) and try to format NTFS. I've seen 64GB thumbs turned into 8GB doorstops.

I've formatted my thumb drives in FAT and NTFS with no issues. Switched back and forth a few times too. I have a 64 GB Kingston Hyper X I want to switch the bit on but can't. It's in the firmware of the drive. The official Windows To Go Utility will only use thumb drives that are set to Fixed Disk. It rejects normal drives set as removable media. It won't let me use my 64 gig Hyper X, but will use my slow poke 5400 RPM IDE Laptop drive in an external USN enclosure. The Official WTG certified drives have the bit set to fixed disk, and cost about twice as much as a normal drive the same size.

ship69 said:

I ran Rufus on my Windows 7 PC. Rufus can see the Memory stick and formatted it (I think), but the Media Creation Tool is still failing to see it. [GRRR!]

Fwiw, memory stick is Kingston 32GB. Is that too high for Windows 7 or MediaCreationTool to see?

I don't think there is a size cap? I haven't used the MCT in a while now and the biggest drive I've used was 16 gig. MVP's get a free MSDN subscription from Microsoft so I usually just use my MSDN ISO's and skip using the MCT.

ship69 said:

I ran Rufus on my Windows 7 PC. Rufus can see the Memory stick and formatted it (I think), but the Media Creation Tool is still failing to see it. [GRRR!]

Fwiw, memory stick is Kingston 32GB. Is that too high for Windows 7 or MediaCreationTool to see?

alphanumeric said:

I don't think there is a size cap? I haven't used the MCT in a while now and the biggest drive I've used was 16 gig. MVP's get a free MSDN subscription from Microsoft so I usually just use my MSDN ISO's and skip using the MCT.

I must really be missing something here. The Media Creation Tool allows for the creation of an ISO, and even allows you to create it wherever you want to. Same drive or navigate to an external and create it there. Doesn't destroy anything, just creates an ISO file. If Rufus can see the thumb and burn to it, there's the install media. I just did it.