Windows 10 Stuck on pre-login loading screen.

[Culbrelai]

It's a clean install. NOT an upgrade. Windows 10 Pro X64.

I installed drivers (my motherboard's whole disk, as well as video drivers, and that's ALL.)

Restarted several times without issue, but when I tried to enable the hidden super admin account, following these instructions http://www.thewindowsclub.com/activate-windows-super-administrator-account (Windows 10 would not let me edit anything in system32 or program files, even when permissions were edited)

and restarted again, it is simply stuck on the pre-login circling dots screen. Even safe mode gets stuck on this screen. Got any clues? Any way to reverse the process on another OS (I'm currently on my old Windows 7 X64 installation on the same physical machine)

 

[JrClocker]

Try setting your motherboard hdd mode to IDE instead of AHCI.

I had this happen to me once and this allowed me to get in and reinstall drivers.

It will load slow when you do this.

 

[Culbrelai]

Windows 10 is on an m.2 SSD, (the only reason im upgrading to windows 10, I can't migrate my 7 installation to the SSD) what will that do if I switch it to IDE?

 

[BoundByBlood]

It will slow down your sata controller. IDE is the most compatible sata controller, but it's designed to be compatible with older technologies thus making the transfer speeds slower. Also, IDE doesn't support features such as hot swapping [hooking up drives while the machine is running] or native command queuing like AHCI does.

 

[EarthDog]

If you I stalled windows on ahci, will it even work in ide mode?? Anyway, if that doesn't work, I'd try a repair on windows. If that doesnt work, reinstall. It Takes 20 mins from usb or an image (you did back up before you made that change, yes?


I'm floored that mobo worked with the disk drivers in w10. That board is OLD. I would at least used the drivers from the download page as those are at least newer.

 

[BoundByBlood]

Well damn EarthDog, just call the man out on his outdated tech why don't ya.

I actually had a similar problem on a fresh install after the Win10 Pro v1511 update. Before the updates everything was fine, but after it would say Working on updates - 100% complete and then it would get stuck on the green pre-login screen with the spinning circles. It never made it to the lock screen. After so long my HDD light would go dark and it was still on that screen. If I hit CTRL+ALT+DEL the default Win10 background would pop up with the network, ease of access, and power options. Restarting or shutting down for at least a minute before booting back up didn't make a difference.

I tried switching to ide, didn't matter. I booted from my win10 USB drive, went into the MS recovery console and did a system restore which allowed me to get back into the desktop, but I lost all of my programs. However, since updates are automatic and forced on us in Win10 the same updates which broke the installation started downloading and reinstalling again. You guessed it, they broke the installation yet a second time getting stuck on the pre-login screen. One of the updates was incompatible with an app/third party program/device I had.

The solution was to boot from USB, delete the partition and then recreate it, format it and do a clean install. Once installed I did all of the basic system device drivers and all of the windows updates including the 1511 build before installing any of my programs. That worked.

 

[EarthDog]

heh, the context was under the guise of 'surprised it worked with the drivers on the disk'. I honestly don't think I have ever used the drivers on the disk if I could help it. You would ALWAYS want to use the latest drivers first, particularly when using an OS that didn't come out until 5 years after the board did.