Aorus X5 guidance for newbie

Hi everyone. A friend handed me their Aorus laptop to have a look at after it got stuck in a Windows Repair loop. I went through all the steps to resolve it and finally discovered the drives were empty - not sure what happened there.

Anyway, I'm onto the point of doing a clean install for them (Windows 10). My first question, or problem rather, is that after going through the initial install steps (with my flash drive plugged in) it does a restart and then just loops with the animated circle of dots. Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

My other question is about the drives. I noticed it has two physical drives listed during the install prompts. I'm assuming the 500gb one is the m.2 and the 1tb is the ssd, correct? And I should be installing Windows on the m.2 disk right?

Thank you!

 

At what point in the install does it stall? Does it occur the same time every attempt?

As far as the two physical drives, best way would be to ask your friend if he/she ordered two m.2 drives or one m.2 and one 2.5 inch (non m.2 drive). But most likely, the 500 gb is the m.2 and 1 tb is a SATA (non m.2) and if so, then, yes, would install the OS on the m.2 (but could ask your friend on the specifics when he/she ordered it).

 

Thanks for responding neohopper. As far as the stall goes - I believe the initial install is completing and then it restarts and tries to do its first Windows boot, and that's where it hangs. Hopefully you'll be around today to take pity on me while I tackle this! Cheers!

 

Did you use the Windows media creation tool to create your usb installation media?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

If not, could try creating new install media to get the latest Windows 10 version and see if this allows you to progress further.

Otherwise, is your friend already resigned to have lost all the data on the drives and expecting you you to perform a complete fresh install of windows 10 as a last resort without preserving any files/documents (i.e. not expecting you to recover data and just wants the machine up and running again)? Did you get confirmation that there is in fact an m.2 and a 2.5 inch (non m.2) drive vs 2 m.2 drives? The reason this is important is because if he/she has 2 m.2 drives, the OS could be on either one of them.

If your friend wants to try to recover data, it may be worth it to try opening up the laptop and removing the OS drive and to try to extract files/documents off of it and then reformatting the m.2 and re-attempting the installation. Would also remove the other non OS drive while in there as to not risk something happening to it during installation. Would need an m.2 external enclosure to connect the m.2 to another computer (unless already has an open m.2 slot).

https://www.amazon.com/ZTC-Enclosur...574790&sr=8-2&keywords=m.2+external+enclosure

Otherwise, if your friend is OK with a completely fresh install and permanently losing everything on the drive (or has data backed up already), and if confirmed it is the only m.2 (and thus the OS drive), then could try to reformat the m.2 drive at the beginning of the installation process. At the step "Where do you want to install Windows?", choose "Format" and format the m.2 500 gb drive. Then, see if this allows you to complete the installation.

http://www.howtogeek.com/224342/how-to-clean-install-windows-10/

 

1) Yep. Used the Microsoft tool to download the installer to a flash drive (which is working).

2) No problem on a complete reformat. Fully convinced there was nothing I could do to retrieve anything from the drivex. I tried using ubuntu and the drives kicked up unable to access/error mounting on both (can give you more on the error codes if needed). Using various utilities I noticed the drives where essentially wiped - I don't know how that came to be.

3) Just took it apart. The ssd is definitely the 1tb. There's a wd m.2 which is 256gb and a liteon m.2 which is 256gb. Additionally there's a avermedia m.2 which I'm assuming is something gaming related rather than storage space. I deleted both drives in order to merge what was 3 partitions orginally. I neglected to create new partitions on the drives after formatting - maybe that's what's causing the errors?

* From my understanding there are 4 ram slots. Strange that the only two I could see were empty. Are the others built in?

** If for whatever reason the bios was reset to factory settings - is there anything I need to tweak in order to perform a successful Windows 10 install?

Thank you savior!

 

Oops. Please deleted this comment.

 

Looks like the system was set up as RAID 0 initially. Is BIOS SATA configuration set to AHCI or RAID? Unfortunately, I don't have experience with installing or setting up RAID. But maybe you can try removing one of the m.2's and setting up non RAID and thus set BIOS SATA configuration to AHCI. I don't think not creating new partitions should be causing any issues. I'm not savior yet, but I can only try my best with my own experiences

Also, I believe the 2 other ram slots are under the motherboard and not easily accessed.

 

Anyone who gets me going in the right direction is a savior at this point!

Bios is set to RAID. I can try changing it to AHCI. I won't have a problem changing it back afterwards - assuming the install eventually works?

 

Changing to RAID would require install from scratch, I don't think you can convert to it and keep your data. But, again, unfortunately I'm not experienced with RAID; however, it may be best to stick with no RAID as if one drive fails in RAID 0 you essentially lose all the data from both drives.

 

Also, if fails to install again, try switching to the other m.2.

 

Now the flash drive install method isn't even working. Quick load screen and then black and no loading movement according to the led's at the bottom. I'm downloading the iso from MS without the install tool so I can burn it to a dvd and try that route. I'll keep you updated.

 

Maybe while you're waiting, could try changing back from AHCI to RAID in BIOS, then with one drive installed and the rest out, try reformatting the single m.2 and installing and see if this progresses further. I read that RAID mode in BIOS will still work even if not installing a RAID array.

 

WIll do

 

I'm getting close to giving up.

- The Windows 10 install won't load (as mentioned)
- Reverting back to Windows 7 bios defaults and attempting to install 7 goes to black screen entirely

At this point I have to wonder if there is a hardware defect. I've done various fixes and repairs to numerous computers - albeit none with a setup quite like this - and not a trick in the book comes close to showing even a glimmer of hope.

I was thinking of installing on the ssd just for sh**s and giggles but I can't even get to the drive selection screen for install attempts anymore.

What's the procedure like for sending it back for repairs if it comes to that?

 

Man, sorry to hear no progress and in fact going in the wrong direction. Where was the laptop purchased from? If from a reseller, could contact them (such as gentechpc or xoticpc), otherwise, here's a link to aorus tech support: http://support.aorus.com/Question/TechQuery

I don't know if you want to try to place the hardware (drives) back to how it was originally and seeing if you get back to "square one" again.

Also was your friend trying to upgrade to Windows 10 from 7 when the laptop failed?

Don't know if anyone with expertise like @hmscott or @Phoenix may have some ideas.

 

I'm not sure where he purchased it, my best guess is from Aorus directly.

I've got everything back as it was originally now.

From what I gather he had upgraded already and used it without issue for at least several weeks. He said this all happened after a scheduled update. ...but I take what people say about computer issues with a grain of salt.

Grah! So much time spent on this. I hate the feeling of failure!

My hail mary attempt now is to try for an 8.1 install. I'm sure it'll go nowhere but at least I'll know I did everything in my power.

 

Is the install working again? If so, then that's a relief, at least you got it back to the previous point. If you were able to get back to your previous point, I don't know how long you waited at the stall point before re-attempting installation, I've read of cases online of having to wait a few hours even before completing the installation for whatever reason. Sorry don't have much else I can offer that I think will definitely help at this point. I know that feeling of spending a lot of time, unsuccessfully, working on an issue. Good luck with attempting Windows 8 and keep this thread updated. You may also want to try posting in the software/windows section to see if you get more advice/recommendations.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forums/windows-os-and-software.15/

 

No go on the 8.1 install. Interesting thought on the wait time for stalling installations. Pretty much resigned from it at this point so I may as well throw the Win 10 installer back in to stall for a few hours...highly doubt it'll go anywhere but why not...

 

@ neohopper Seem to be making progress here - knock on wood.

Any idea why cold boots are almost instantaneous but restarts are taking minutes rather than seconds?

 

Great, did you get through a full install and reboot finally? What did you different? Maybe windows updates after fresh install is contributing to some of the initial slow boot ups.

 

I took your advice and left it alone (and prayed). Came back less than an hour later and lo and behold it was asking for wifi info. Even better I used the Windows 10 installer "by mistake" so no need to upgrade. As far as what I did I'm not entirely sure what fixed it besides waiting. Reset the bios to defaults. Switched back and forth between 7 and 8.1 defaults...

There are various updates I'm doing so hopefully that is what's calling the delay. But I did try it out once without updating anything and same result. Maybe it'll go back to normal after everything is installed and happy.

 

All set now but the restart time issue remains...

Cold boot to logon screen = 5 seconds
Restart to logon screen = 15 MINUTES

Help!

 

Did you try disabling fast startup?
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/soft...03760/how-to-fix-the-windows-10-slow-boot-bug

Also do you have any external USB drives connected?

I'm glad things are up and running!

 

Just tried and nogo - if anything it made it worse. In hindsight it did say next to it that it didn't have any affect on restarts. I reverted it back and the cold boots are good again at least. Just made a system image and recovery disk for it. I'll get it back to him today. Final step is to look at the bios. Anything you can think of that could be tweaked? Cheers.

 

I think you've got it back in working order which is great to hear. No Bios tweaks I can think of now. Maybe once the laptop has more time on and able to complete various updates and other various activities in the background, the long restart issues will sort itself out. I'm glad your long hours have paid off

 

Agreed. Thank you so much!

 

Just fyi regarding restarts vs 'cold boots' in windows 10, a restart should be slower (although obviously not as slow as what you were seeing). That's because in windows 10, a shutdown doesn't actually do a full shutdown like old versions of windows, but it instead 'hibernates/caches' parts of the system to speed up boot time. Only a restart does a completely clean boot under windows 10.

 

Thanks for explaining that @Svegetto it made no sense to me.