Question PC won't boot into Windows unless I tap F12

ocelot20

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Hi,

Just wondering if anyone can help me. I have a PC here I put together for my dad a few years ago. Last night something went wrong where the PC kept locking up and the CPU (FX 8320) was being used 100% by firefox. I thought the thermal paste might of just needed changing so I changed it.

Then windows would not boot. I kept getting a blue screen with an error. The error was something about a Kernal. Long story short something with up with the hard drive. After a few hours or trying different things. I gave up and simply formatted it and reinstalled windows.

Windows has installed fine and the PC is back up and running as normal. Only issue is once I switch the PC on. I just get a black screen with a _ flashing in the top left corner. Now if I was to reboot but this time tap the F12 key then manually select the SSD where windows is installed it will boot fine.

I have tried selecting the SSD as the first boot. I have also disabled the 2 other HDD's from the boot order menu. I have tried resetting the bios settings. But am still facing the same issue.
 
I'm presuming F12 is for a boot order over ride menu. If so, it's usually a one off for that boot.
From what you say it appears as if the correct boot order is not being stored in the Bios, hence why you have to do F12 every time.
Do you get the same problem if you go into the Bios at power on (del key) and change there, Save and Exit?

What is the bios make? What mode is the SSD and other disks in (RAID, AHCI, IDE, UEFI)
Might be worth checking if you are filtering the boot volumes displayed by mode type in the bios and something else is higher in the boot order which is being hidden by any filters.

Perhaps the device you installed windows from is at the top of the boot order (and which is no longer available, say a removed USB stick with the windows install on), although I can't remember if Bios will then:
  • drop down to the next device and try it,
  • or just look for the top device and, if not there, fail to hand over to Windows (no device to boot O/S from) after POST; hence just displaying the flashing cursor.
How this is handled may be bios make and version dependent as I'm sure I remember both scenarios happening over the years I've been building PCs.
 
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I'm presuming F12 is for a boot order over ride menu. If so, it's usually a one off for that boot.
From what you say it appears as if the correct boot order is not being stored in the Bios, hence why you have to do F12 every time.
Do you get the same problem if you go into the Bios at power on (del key) and change there, Save and Exit?

What is the bios make? What mode is the SSD and other disks in (RAID, AHCI, IDE, UEFI)
Might be worth checking if you are filtering the boot volumes displayed by mode type in the bios and something else is higher in the boot order which is being hidden by any filters.

Perhaps the device you installed windows from is at the top of the boot order (and which is no longer available, say a removed USB stick with the windows install on), although I can't remember if Bios will then:
  • drop down to the next device and try it,
  • or just look for the top device and, if not there, fail to hand over to Windows (no device to boot O/S from) after POST; hence just displaying the flashing cursor.
How this is handled may be bios make and version dependent as I'm sure I remember both scenarios happening over the years I've been building PCs.


Thanks for the reply.

The motherboard is a MSI 760g-p43 FX. The SSD is set to IDE. For the boot order the SSD is number 1. I have removed all other HDD's and DVD drives from the boot order. It's not a massive issue. It just takes an extra 30 seconds to get to the desktop. If there is a possible fix then great. He will most likely be buying new parts soon anyhow as this is not the first time this PC has failed on him. It was an extremely cheap build and am some what surprised it has lasted the 3 or so years.
 
Thanks for the reply.

The motherboard is a MSI 760g-p43 FX. The SSD is set to IDE. For the boot order the SSD is number 1. I have removed all other HDD's and DVD drives from the boot order. It's not a massive issue. It just takes an extra 30 seconds to get to the desktop. If there is a possible fix then great. He will most likely be buying new parts soon anyhow as this is not the first time this PC has failed on him. It was an extremely cheap build and am some what surprised it has lasted the 3 or so years.
Did you install windows from a DVD or from USB stick? What version Windows?

Been a while since I used an older board (especially AMD) but in some the boot from USB/DVD is in another location in the bios than boot order (and may perhaps over ride that). Hence why I was wondering if it's still trying to boot from the windows install disk (as this problem started after you re-installed Windows). If you installed from DVD you would get an insert DVD message if that was still operational but not an equivalent if you installed from USB.
 
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Thanks again,

Windows was installed via a USB stick.
There is nothing wrong with Windows as it will boot from the SSD when you manually select it with F12. So it may be in the bios settings somewhere. No details in the MSI manual so you may just have to go through the bios screens and see if a boot device is specified anywhere else than in the boot order settings. Or this may be a red herring and something else is involved. These might give a pointer.

Bad User Agent detected

Access BIOS & Change Boot Order for Any Version of Windows

I'm wondering if you have legacy selected to only display IDE devices but you need to see UEFI and Legacy devices. Or if Windows 8/10 you created a UEFI USB install.

When an operating system is installed using Legacy BIOS boot mode, the operating system can be started only in Legacy BIOS boot mode. When an operating system is installed using UEFI boot mode, the operating system can be started only in UEFI boot mode.

See:
Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS mode

Also there is a bios setting which must be enabled or disabled.
Disabling Secure Boot

So you may be trying to boot a UEFI boot mode in Legacy or a legacy boot mode in UEFI.
Neither would work automatically after POST although I don't know if F12 would be able to over ride that so may be another red herring but I think this could possibly be the problem area if another device isn't at the top of the boot order.

Your PC is failing at this point
After POST has completed its job, the boot process searches the boot device list for a device with a BIOS on it.
The Five Steps of the Boot Sequence | Techwalla.com
So it isn't finding a device to boot from either because it isn't there or the wrong boot mode is being used.

Can you try powering off and inserting the Windows install USB and then back on. If that boots OK the USB is higher in the boot order or has over ride priority. Obviously don't start the install itself. If it doesn't boot and you just get the flashing cursor again we can eliminate the 'hidden' higher order boot device so is more likely a possible Legacy/UEFI problem.

Although I would have expected some sort of error message re no boot devices in either case.
 
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Ok so I tried last night and today. I can confirm this motherboard does not support UEFI. No mention of it in the bios. I also did the reset option and no UEFI option was in the trouble shooting section.

I did come across another issue. So last night I turned it off with a blank disc in the DVD drive. When I tried to boot the system and tapping F12 like I have been doing. The OS SSD did not show as normal in the boot selection. Only the CD/DVD drive. Took me a while to figure out what was going on. I then took the blank disc out and switched the desktop on again. Pressing F12 gave me the option to boot from the SSD again.

So I shut it down again. This time I connected my phone to a USB port before switching the PC on again. Again pressing F12 but again it would not give me the option to boot from SSD. Only the CD drive. Disconnected the phone and restarted again pressing F12. SSD was once again an option. This PC is really weird.

If it helps when I formatted the HDD when it was having issues. I did so via going into the CMD and doing the chkdsk clean and chksdk format ntfs.

I then downloaded Windows 10 via the Microsoft website via my own PC and made it bootable via a USB stick. I am wondering if by downloading Windows via my own PC (pretty sure my motherboard supports UEFI) has something to do it with?
 
I then downloaded Windows 10 via the Microsoft website via my own PC and made it bootable via a USB stick. I am wondering if by downloading Windows via my own PC (pretty sure my motherboard supports UEFI) has something to do it with?
Could be. Did you do anything like the steps noted in these links to create the install USB?
How to Install Windows 8.1 and 10 on a non-UEFI Computer

Create UEFI or Legacy Bootable USB Drive for Windows 10 Setup | Password Recovery

And when you did the install did you "Choose UEFI or legacy BIOS modes while installing Windows"
as "After Windows is installed, the device boots automatically using the same mode it was installed with"

Not sure if you would have to re-install to get round this issue or can get Windows to change itself. You could try the steps in this and see how you get on
Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS mode

Although it seems odd that Windows would install in UEFI mode on a non UEFI motherboard. Depends how smart the installer is I suppose...
 
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Nope didn't do any of that. I simply downloaded the Windows media tool then the media tool set up the installation files onto the USB stick. I don't recall being able to choose if I wanted UEFI or Legacy the media tool pretty much did everything for me.

Thanks for the link. Ill just reinstall windows again tonight but this time following the steps provided in that link you have left.

Thanks again for the help.
 

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