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Windows boot AND install gets stuck


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Not sure if Sofware is the right place since it's hardware related just as much, but I'm having some issues with my laptop and Windows.

 

The laptop is ASUS Zenbook UX32VD, running Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit.

 

The other day I turned it on and it got stuck in the boot screen. Happened once before, turned it off and on a couple of times and it just "fixed" itself. This time, no luck. It would alternate between getting stuck on the boot screen with Windows logo, or getting stuck while trying to perform Automatic Repair.

 

Anyway, long story short, turns out the problem is not software related. It seems that the 32GB cache SSD that came with the laptop has a tendency to give up. I tried (and succeeded) booting Ubuntu from a USB drive. GParted doesn't even report the cache drive, but when fiddling with partition options during installation, it reports the /dev/sdb (cache drive), I just can't do anything with it, reports errors when I try to partition it. Ubuntu's boot screen also flashed a few lines while booting, also reporting errors with /dev/sdb.

 

The thing is, whatever the particular failure is, it still reports the device in BIOS under a SATA port, and I guess Windows gets confused with it. I've literally left it booting for a couple of hours, no luck (people online with the same hardware issue only reported a slight slow down in boot time, speaking of minutes, but they managed to boot Windows, just not use the drive anymore). When I try to do a fresh install, the setup hangs at the first screen after the language selection. That's the screen where it does hardware analysis.

 

As I said, the drive is visible under BIOS, but there are no options to disable a port. What's worse, it's soldered onto the motherboard.

 

I'd personally just like to remove the drive and throw it out and get on with my day, but I can't to that.

 

Is there a way to somehow make Windows ignore the SATA port in the pre-setup stage? Everything else hardware-wise seems to be okay. I'm now running Ubuntu, but I need Windows for work. Shipping the laptop off for repair is as good as throwing it away considering I need to have something to work on, and my best bet right now is running Windows inside of a virtual machine.

 

Any help greatly appreciated.

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Try to remove the battery if any and possible. The mobo battery that is.

Restore your BIOS to default settings and add another HDD to your laptop, buy one (if possible again).

Try to install Windows from a USB stick and format everything, allow the setup to create another drive for Windows.

Thats all I can think off right now. :/

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If you do a fresh install of Windows, it shouldn't use the drive as a cache without installing some tools/drivers, etc. for that. Whether you can work around the issue really depends on whether it is just because it is being used by Windows currently or if it is an issue during enumeration.

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DRex: Restored bios defaults. I have a proper working drive in it (256GB), the problem is with the soldered 32GB cache SSD.

snaphat: The problem is I can't even install Windows. The installation hangs when scanning hardware because of the failed SSD. Ubuntu takes some time, but eventually it "ignores" it and continue booting.

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DRex: Restored bios defaults. I have a proper working drive in it (256GB), the problem is with the soldered 32GB cache SSD.

snaphat: The problem is I can't even install Windows. The installation hangs when scanning hardware because of the failed SSD. Ubuntu takes some time, but eventually it "ignores" it and continue booting.

In that case you are pretty much out of luck. Basically, it sounds like it has issues even enumerating the drive which is what I feared might be the case. 

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Syanide, on 06 Apr 2014 - 00:56, said:Syanide, on 06 Apr 2014 - 00:56, said:Syanide, on 06 Apr 2014 - 00:56, said:

DRex: Restored bios defaults. I have a proper working drive in it (256GB), the problem is with the soldered 32GB cache SSD.

snaphat: The problem is I can't even install Windows. The installation hangs when scanning hardware because of the failed SSD. Ubuntu takes some time, but eventually it "ignores" it and continue booting.

Try with a Windows XP installation disk and upgrade your OS if you succeed into booting Windows ? Perhaps XP has a different install arhitecture.

I would try install XP and then upgrade to Windows 8 from within. Once Windows 8 is installed , just refresh.

It might not be worth it but you could try once.

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Maybe someone suffers the same problem and this can be helpful, anyway, I managed to fix mine. Stumbled on this today: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/679687-ux32vd-issd-not-detected-10.html#post9627403 Called a friend who has a solder iron, took the laptop to him, he took the damn thing off. No shipping it off to ASUS for a month to fix it, no charge on a new motherboard. I used Ubuntu for the past two weeks with Windows running as a virtual machine, but I can finally get back to the way things were.

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