Insider Dev Builds of 21H2 and Windows 11 fail to boot on an Asus ROG G703GXR

Anonymous

I've tried just about every release of 21H2 as well as the new release of Windows 11.

So far, they all react the same way.

Download works fine.

Update during restart works fine.

If further updates need to install, that boot sequence works fine and updates continue to install.

Once it reboots with no further updates to install, the post finishes, there is a bit of disk activity after the post before the spinning circle of dots would normally appear.

That is as far as the boot goes.

It just hangs there, indefinitely.

I've left it sit there for over 48 hours to no avail.

My only recourse is to physically power off the laptop, wait, turn back on and the upgrade is rolled back to the 21H1 installation I am running from the insider beta channel.

The G703GXR is a desktop replacement laptop.

It runs an Intel Core i9, 9980HK, 8 core (2.4Ghz to 5Ghz).

It also has an NVidia RTX 2080.

64GB RAM, 8GB VRAM

1 x Samsung 970 Pro 512GB NVMe for boot.

2 x Samsung 980 SSD 1TB (part of storage space)

1 x Samsung 860 QVO 2TB (part of storage space)

2 x Samsung 970 Pro 512GB NVMe inside ROG ESD-S1C USB-C enclosures.

I've checked and triple-checked all the CMOS/UEFI settings, trying different combinations.

I've gone as far as re-installing from scratch using the 21H1 USB ISO image (which cost me my W10 Pro for Workstations digital license when not all the devices matched the prior install).

I then attempted the 21H2 and W11 insider previews again, same hang at the same place.

What are the differences in the boot sequence for 21H2 and W11 from 21H1?

Is there a way to get any logs or debug information from the boots?

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Anonymous

2021-08-29T17:39:48+00:00

The fact that I can clean install 21H1 without issue, but cannot do the same with 21H2 and W11 indicates to me that it is enumerating the disks differently.
The fact that it fails when there is only 1 NVMe drive in the machine seems to indicate that it changes the drive identifiers during the upgrade process, breaking the ability to boot.
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Anonymous

2021-08-29T12:06:06+00:00

Last reinstall was done after a diskpart wipe of primary drive.

Remainder of drives are part of a storage space.

Each time I try the upgrade, it reassigns a drive letter (E:) to the 100mb vol of said primary drive.

I've also done a reinstall with all storage space drives removed from the laptop.

Another oddity is that if I use a USB drive to try a fresh install, it has the same problem, it hangs at the same location, but only with 21H2 or W11.

A fresh install with 21H1 has no problems.

I use Rufus to create the boot flash drive for the iso
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BryceSor 5,500 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2021-08-29T07:03:26+00:00

Just before your system rolls back it can't find this hard drive which it is trying to boot from which I assume is where its trying to setup the new W11 system, it has the same error through all your roll backs, have you use Format C: in CMD to reformat the drive? before staring a clean install, I also see your antivirus is still installed. There are also warning it running out of space in certain parts as there so much information trying to load into memory or temporary disc space.

You receive error: Stop error code 0x0000007B (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) after you install Windows Updates (microsoft.com)

2021-08-28 22:14:51, Warning SP FindGlobalPath: Cannot find volume name for \?\GLOBALROOT\Device*HardDisk6\Partition1*. Error: 0x0000007B

If you can, although for HDD they always said to use location on the motherboard HDD 0 for Windows C:\ but I can't say for SSD these days which is the best location for the SSD to be attached.

Let us know what you find 🙂
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Anonymous

Searching for setup logs...

Found C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Panther\setupact.log with update date 08/28/2021 22:18:42 to be the correct setup log. 

Found C:\$WINDOWS.~BT\Sources\Rollback\setupact.log with update date 08/28/2021 22:29:16 to be the correct rollback log.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiTyfmSLduRYiXiBu7NUXLzAkdkY\

Disk 3 is the boot/os drive.

Disk 6 is the storage space.

DISKPART> list disk 

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt 

  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  --- 

  Disk 3    Online          476 GB  1024 KB        * 

  Disk 6    Online         4669 GB      0 B        * 

DISKPART> select disk 3 

Disk 3 is now the selected disk.
   Part 1 is the volume that keeps getting drive letter e: assigned to it during the upgrade.
   I have to manually remove that drive letter after each attempt.

DISKPART> list part 

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset 

  -------------  ----------------  -------  ------- 

  Partition 1    System             100 MB  1024 KB 

  Partition 2    Reserved            16 MB   101 MB 

  Partition 3    Primary            476 GB   117 MB 

  Partition 4    Recovery           508 MB   476 GB 

DISKPART> select disk 6 

Disk 6 is now the selected disk. 

DISKPART> list part 

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset 

  -------------  ----------------  -------  ------- 

  Partition 1    Reserved           128 MB  1024 KB 

  Partition 2    Primary           4669 GB   129 MB

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BryceSor 5,500 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator

2021-08-29T04:47:05+00:00

Have you got the latest logs please on the last attempt.
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