Black Screen on boot up from Windows 7

[rlesko]

I recently purchased a new Crucial SSD. I decided to clone my current HDD to the new SSD because I recently assembled this computer and the installation and everything is very fresh, but I did not want to go through the process of installing everything over again.

So, that being said I cleaned and defrag'd my current HDD and then used EASEUS Home Edition to copy current HDD to my SSD. All good so far. I still didn't align the SSD because the GParted Live screen differ'd from what I had seen in Tutorials (no align to cylinder check box, units in MiB) and I didn't want to poke around with something I wasn't sure of. Anyways, to my knowledge, this would just slow things down temporarily until I realign later on and not cause major problems.

I went into my BIOS next and selected to boot from my SSD and not the CD Drive or HDD. I got a blank black screen with the flashing underline in the top left. Ok, then I disconnected the HDD from the mobo and tried booting then. Same thing. Then I tried to use a Windows 7 repair CD to ensure the MBR was ok on the SSD. Was not 100% sure if anything was repaired or not, but anyways, then I rebooted and tried again. Same black screen. To be clear, I am not even getting to the point of the Windows Logo. I have tried holding F8 to boot in safe mode but I can not even get to that point.

No idea what is going wrong, any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[VirtualLarry]

First off, regardless of whether or not the clone succeeds, you should NOT ever boot Windows, with both the old and new cloned drive still connected. You should physically unplug the old drive, and only have the new cloned drive, before booting Windows.

Otherwise, Windows will at time use both drives, and get things royally screwed up.

I had this problem with 2000, and AFAIK, the same issues exist with every version of NT since, when dealing with cloned drives.

 

[rlesko]

First off, regardless of whether or not the clone succeeds, you should NOT ever boot Windows, with both the old and new cloned drive still connected. You should physically unplug the old drive, and only have the new cloned drive, before booting Windows.

Otherwise, Windows will at time use both drives, and get things royally screwed up.

I had this problem with 2000, and AFAIK, the same issues exist with every version of NT since, when dealing with cloned drives.

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep that in mind going forward. Unfortunately, even with the other drive unplugged, it still does not work.

 

[Steltek]

Before you cloned the drive, was AHCI support enabled in the BIOS for the Windows install on your old hard drive?

 

[lookit77]

I recently purchased a new Crucial SSD. I decided to clone my current HDD to the new SSD because I recently assembled this computer and the installation and everything is very fresh, but I did not want to go through the process of installing everything over again.

So, that being said I cleaned and defrag'd my current HDD and then used EASEUS Home Edition to copy current HDD to my SSD. All good so far. I still didn't align the SSD because the GParted Live screen differ'd from what I had seen in Tutorials (no align to cylinder check box, units in MiB) and I didn't want to poke around with something I wasn't sure of. Anyways, to my knowledge, this would just slow things down temporarily until I realign later on and not cause major problems.

I went into my BIOS next and selected to boot from my SSD and not the CD Drive or HDD. I got a blank black screen with the flashing underline in the top left. Ok, then I disconnected the HDD from the mobo and tried booting then. Same thing. Then I tried to use a Windows 7 repair CD to ensure the MBR was ok on the SSD. Was not 100% sure if anything was repaired or not, but anyways, then I rebooted and tried again. Same black screen. To be clear, I am not even getting to the point of the Windows Logo. I have tried holding F8 to boot in safe mode but I can not even get to that point.

No idea what is going wrong, any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Did you solve your problem? I used the same software and have the same symptoms as you did.