Windows 8 not booting at all

Question

Hello

I have a Dell Inspiron One 2330, which had Windows 8 Pre Installed

one fine day it stopped booting windows 8...

no matter, I had the recovery media... I made a full system restore... and nothing... it still does not boot

black screen after windows logo

Dell Diagnostics accused no trouble whatsoever, all the tests performed succesfully

I Was baffled

after a lot of tinkering, I managed to go back to Windows 7, the system runs fine, but I am running a trial license of Win 7, as I have not yet bought a license

(I actually tried restoring the system using the Dell generated backup disks AND the Windows 8 OEM Disk, provided after those did not work)

what could be preventing Windows 8 from booting, since neither the instalation fails, nor the HDD acuses any problem?

Dell-Kuldeep M · Answer

Hi phix87,

The issue does not seem to be related to the hardware as you are able to install Windows 7.

You may try to check the settings in the BIOS to ensure the SATA Mode is set to AHCI.

Go to the BIOS screen by pressing F2 at the Dell logo 4-5 times; navigate to ‘Advanced Tab’ and set ‘SATA Operation’ to ‘AHCI’.

Try installing a fresh copy of the operating system. Refer to the link http://dell.to/GMe1MI for steps on how to perform a clean installation.

Keep me posted with the results. I will be glad to assist you further.

phix87 · Answer

Hello, Kuldeep

I checked and it was set to AHCI...

I tried setting it to ATA then back to AHCI, as some posts sugested that the SSD systems got a similar hang while using IsRT

even though my sistem does not have an SSD HDD or uses IsRT I thought to be worth the shot

I haven't tried yet to install Windows 8 after this mode flushing

I had already tried a clean install, but to no avail, both recovery and clean install completed succesfully but it still did not boot

I have also tried the clean install in both UEFI and Legacy Modes, also to no avail...

when I have the time I'll try to set the HDD back to GPT and try the install on UEFI again

If you have any other idea on what could be wrong, I would be really grateful!

Thanks anyway for your quick response

Dell-Kuldeep M · Answer

Hi phix87,

You may try the steps below and check if you are able to install windows 8 and boot properly.

Go to the BIOS screen by pressing the F2 key 4-5 times at Dell logo.
Check the ‘SATA Mode’ is set to ‘AHCI’ in ‘Advanced Tab’.
Go to the ‘Boot Tab’ and set Boot Mode to ‘UEFI’.
Set the ‘Secure Boot Control’ option to ‘Enabled’.
Save the settings and Exit from the system setup screen.

Once the system restarts, tap the F12 key 6-7 times to boot to the ‘One Time Boot Menu’ screen.

Select the CD/DVD option that has UEFI listed in front of it from the Boot menu and press Enter to select.

Keep me posted with the results. I will be glad to assist you further.

Windows General

Windows 8 not booting at all

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