Windows installer doesn't work?

Under hard drive bbs priorities I am able to select the boot devices. Unsure what this does but the uefi drive is not listed. It is only the normal USB with CSM media and the ssd. Just to be safe I have the ssd set to first priority there too.

There are definitely files on the ssd. To show I have plugged in my hdd, booted from from that and gone to file manager. I am able to copy over files like pictures/video/etc, and use them. I can open text documents. I can even go into the system files, open up .dll files, config files and other system files and can see data being stored. It may be a corrupt or incomplete windows install but there is definitely data on the drive. The drive is working at least to some capacity. Windows should boot. There are system files on the ssd. Even regedit, notepad and explorer are installed and useable. It makes no sense to me.

It could still be the ssd. Maybe something is preventing it from booting even though it can be used as external storage instead. You are right though, my apologies. It is not samsung it is an hp ssd. It's been a long 2 days haha.

I agree though. It baffles me how I am able to connect both drives and boot to the hdd fine, but the ssd will not. It should be as easy as switching the drives out, installing windows and then connecting the hdd later, removing windows from it and keeping my files on it. Technically I should be able to boot from both, to my normal setup and also to a clean win10 install. But even though both drives are listed in my boot options only the hdd actually boots. I may just end up having to settle for a slow OS and then put all my programs on the ssd. I'd just really like to have windows on it too. I was planning to only use my old hdd for files and things that I dont care about load times on but maybe this ssd just cant boot windows or something.

Hi,

You can have two windows installations on your machine at once, but it complicates things...

The boot files for the SSD may end up on the HDD for instance...

Do you know for a fact which Bios type the original HDD was set up for ?

I know Gregg is quite knowledgeable about this stuff, but I disagree with his opinion of the use of the Media Creation Tool to make the Installation Flash Drive...

It does not always work... Some machines simply can not interpret the combination UEFI\Legacy drive it creates... This is dependent upon the machines Bios, and what it specifically responds to...

UEFI Bios is supposedly "Uniform" between machines, but it is not... What may work on one Machine's Bios may not work with another machine... The standardization is not very precise...

That is why I suggest RUFUS... Rufus does not install... it just runs... It creates a drive specifically for a UEFI or Legacy machine, and as a result, removes some of the guessing as to what is going on with the Bios...

As I mentioned about my machine... It auto switches it's Bios configuration based upon the boot media configuration... Obviously, if it can not clearly distinguish what is being booted, things do not go smoothly..

I think your issues are down to two possibilities...

The flash drive is not being detected properly...

The SSD has a problem..

I'm not sure how you want to proceed.. I know my first encounter with the UEFI Bios about drove me nuts... I didn't even know my motherboard was UEFI capable, as the first OS installed on it was from a Windows 7 Pro SP1 DVD... This automatically configured the Bios for Legacy, and everything worked...

It wasn't until later when the newer machines came out and UEFI problems popping up everywhere that I became more aware of it...

What really got me mixed up in it was the installation of a PCIe NVMe M.2 drive...

The drive does not even appear as a boot selection... Just the WindowsBootManager that is on it...

It required adding driver files to the installation media just to install Windows 7 to it...

I have since removed it, as the boot speed was no faster than my regular SSD, and it was a bit of a pain to deal with..

It would definitely complicate things trying to run 2 windows installations. But I'm not. Up until I took a break from attempting to fix the issue, the hdd was completely detached. I switched them out and everything works as normal again.

I'd really like to try and get windows to boot from the ssd but I can always just use it as a drive to run any programs I want to, just not the OS. 

I can confirm with pretty good confidence that the hdd used the legacy version of the media creation tool, way back at the release of windows 10. Could it be an issue where a drive using the legacy version but the uefi doesnt? This would be weird to me though considering the motherboard uses uefi and it is enabled. Is there a setting I'm missing that forces legacy mode only? I did also try installing on the ssd with the legacy media but it was not compatible. I even tried formatting the disk as MBR instead of GPT. A blank drive says it's just not compatible, when formatted as GPT it says it cannot because it isn't compatible with GPT. But when formatted as MBR it says it cannot install because of a MBR partition table. No matter what option I choose it isnt compatible with the legacy install media for some reason or the other. I can try mounting the iso again but I don't think it will work like last time.

It has to be a problem with the installer or the drive. But again the drive seems to work and the installer does too. The install media successfully runs. It seems like it missing a necessary file to boot windows or something. But then there are tons of files on the ssd, and I can also run other things from the ssd without issue. I can reformat it and use it as a second drive, just not a boot drive for some reason.

Could the board just not boot uefi type installations? The board is getting old, it was bought about 5 or 6 years ago now. The last firmware update was from 2014. Maybe the bios works with uefi but I'm forced to boot via legacy?

Just to confirm, you plugged the SSD into PORT 1 and set it to AHCI under SATA controller? You know for sure it's Port 1 by looking at Manual?  It won't work or tell you otherwise.  

You then enabled UEFI, disabled Secure Boot, set SSD first to boot, then triggered media via boot interrupt key,  cleaned the SSD?

 Can you test this with another HDD or SSD?  Also test the SSD with the  manufacturers diagnostic tool while their phone or chat support is connected with you so you can get an RMA on the spot.

https://mashtips.com/ssd-health-test-and-performance-monitor-tools/

If the SSD is good or it won't install UEFI to another drive either, then try enabling CSM and booting media as Legacy.  

Try another flash stick or DVD creating new media..

Try also enabling all SATA ports to AHCI in case it's plugged into another port.