The startup process is taking a long time.
The startup process is taking a long time.
The locked drive appeared before the C drive in my PC, possibly due to encryption. Since I didn’t enable Windows encryption, it might be causing the slow startup. The disk manager still displays the C drive (T700) with a UEFI partition before and after the drive, but it no longer shows up.
It might not always be the case... the RAM could work fine but still clash with the BIOS or CPU controller. Memtest usually checks for actual hardware faults, but sometimes it misses things. Still, it’s possible the problem started from the beginning. Honestly, unless there’s someone who can help, you’ll likely need to reinstall everything.
I went through all the adjustments possible, then finally installed Windows 11 and it resolved the issue. I’m not sure if the problem stemmed from using Rufus to create the Windows 11 image, which disabled compatibility checks and online login settings. Now it opens quickly as expected. I’d have liked to reinstall before installing and configuring all my programs.