Problem with boot drive or partition being unrecognized following a fresh Windows 10 installation
Problem with boot drive or partition being unrecognized following a fresh Windows 10 installation
I had to perform a complete reinstall of Windows 10 after an update failed.
I only reformatted my C drive partition initially before the reinstall.
I managed to boot into my desktop normally, but only after entering BIOS and manually choosing the startup drive in the Boot list.
After saving and exiting, I could launch my desktop as expected.
The next time I restarted without going through BIOS first, the PC would freeze, with fans spinning and a black screen appearing.
Using Diskpart to view partitions on my boot drive showed:
DISKPART> list partition
Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Recovery 530 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 System 100 MB 531 MB
Partition 3 Reserved 16 MB 631 MB
Partition 4 Primary 983 GB 647 MB
Partition 5 Primary 878 GB 984 GB
It’s a 2TB M.2 SSD. Partition 4 was the one I cleaned up before reinstalling Windows.
Does this look accurate?
Any assistance or feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Yes, the Windows installer dislikes any files on the disk besides the GPT partition table header. I often use Gparted to create a disk with just the GPT header and an unallocated space.
I have encountered situations where booting with Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver causes incorrect letter reassignments. Often it misassigns drive C: to a small partition, placing your Windows partition on drive D or E, preventing the system from starting.
The previous solution was removing the Intel Rapid Storage driver and reverting to the standard Microsoft system. Alternatively, using DiskPart to assign a new drive letter such as F: to the partition would allow proper recognition and booting. Until updates trigger the changes, trying to boot from a USB drive might resolve the issue.
Resolving the issue required navigating to the Windows Control Panel and Device Manager, locating the SATA/AHCI driver, right-clicking for properties, attempting an update by selecting "Browse my computer" for the driver, choosing the correct option, and then restarting. After rebooting, returning to Control Panel allowed uninstalling the Intel storage driver, which should clear the service conflicts.
I have been a while since I performed these steps, so the phrasing or locations may need adjustment. I hope this now works through BIOS, chipset, and an updated Intel storage driver.