Boot always hangs to Win/WinPE OS or USB disk, UEFI diagnostics show all PASS

[GMorse]

Something is almost certainly wrong with the RAID/SATA controller or the built in SSD as a sleep operation caused data corruption (overwritten GPT table and many Intel Rapid Storage technology cache issues with a somewhat corrupted MFT).  All UEFI diagnostics tests of the latest provided by HP (through a USB drive) are showing PASS.  Boot disks work for various tools.  But any attempt to bring up Windows or any WinPE (pre-execution environment) always cause a hang with the circle spinning round and around but even capslock not responding.  The boot drivers for SATA and RAID almost certainly cause the hang.  And considering bootable USB with both UEFI, or CSM legacy Windows or MSDART tools always hang, the issue is certain that something in the hardware failed.  I have reflashed the latest BIOS using Crisis method and the normal UEFI way.  Tried a hard reset.  Is there anyway to diagnose this further without sending to a shop for a repair?

It is a 4 year old HP Envy 15, out of its 3 year care pack warranty, HP is offering nearly $60 for a diagnosis conversation, and who knows how much a repair would cost given I am in Hungary now and the warranty is for the USA.  If I can diagnose and find an easy way to repair some component at a local non-official service dealer who can go into the hardware, it might be the only monetarily sound method to proceed beyond scrapping the laptop.

I fortunately can recover most of the disk, though chkdsk repair may destroy a lot of files, and a lot of those files are randomly corrupted due to the way the cache drive failure must have occurred.  But the cache drive still shows up in BIOS along with the RAID controller settings and such.  Any ideas?

My suspicion is the hang occurs at the very first stage of boot when iastor*.sys driver(s) load, be it a default version, or the Intel Rapid Storage RST one.  I dont think a CMOS reset would help here.  Perhaps removing the 32GB SSD (if it even is removable) or even making a special non-standard Windows which boots without the default AMD SATA driver.  I have heard from repair shops that SATA/RAID controllers failing are pretty rare.

[GMorse]

Apparently it still booted, but not from media which had Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) driver in it.  MSDART had the driver added which caused it to be useless in this context.  A bit annoying as for an emergency USB, you would need an MSDART with and without Intel RST, along with all media including Windows installation, etc.

Anyway, I manually recovered the whole machine (documented in case any experts want to save time if they suffer a similar problem):

1) Active Partition Recovery can quickly restore the GPT, and each partition still in excellent condition.

2) diskpart needs to set the Recovery and System partition GPT GUID types and flags, MSR partition recreated.

3) bcdedit needs to set partition and ramdisk entries from unknown to appropriate mappings either drive letters or \Volume\HarddiskVolume# type values

4) chkdsk to make sure the MFT is not corrupted, it can be dangerous as certain corruption of the MFT can cause chkdsk to wipe out most of the table and render the system a file level data recovery disaster, so backup of critical data first highly recommended since the nature of a random crash with a cache drive is not always predictable especially if known a lot of write activity was occuring around it.

5) It never hurts to run sfc /scannow offline and dism /image: /cleanup-image /scanhealth followed by /restorehealth for verification of Windows files.

5) Remove Intel RST manually, dism /image: /get-drivers |more, find OEM # corresponding iastorac.inf ,then dism /image: /remove-driver /driver:oem##.inf

6) Repair the registry manually by loading the windows\system32\config\SYSTEM registry hive as "sys", iastorav, iastorv, and storahdci must have StartOverride set from 3 to 0.  Any remnants of Intel RST iastorac, iastora, etc should be carefully removed and searched for to make sure no dependencies in hardware are still there.  Exporting registry from the repair Windows running for the hardware, using notepad to change SYSTEM to "sys", then reimporting while mounted can allow corrupt RST removal in the Enum and Control\DeviceClasses areas without issue but should only be done by someone with expert confidence and experience.

In the end, the Liteon 24gb SSD was faulty.  It was causing RST driver to hang.  Behavior changed by creating a RAID0 then deleting it (unfortunately blowing the GPT and repeating all above steps).  Then using RST in Windows which is painfully slow without it, a cache drive initialized again.  Then Windows gave blue screen of INVALID STORE EXCEPTION, which it was doing previously prior to the failure and is a warning sign of the bad SSD.

So in the end, I will purchase a >128GB SSD and use the modern approach of OS on SSD (hopefully just using advanced techniques to mirror partitions and no reinstall or fresh install), and have an even faster and reliable machine without Intel Rapid Start and Rapid Storage technologies which are both largely obsolete, old cost saving technologies that are going slowly into irrelevance as SSD prices have dropped enough and a 24GB or 32GB SSD is hardly any different in prices than a 128/256GB one.

[A4Apollo]

Hi! @GMorse,  Thanks for stopping by the HP Support Forums!

I understand when your power on your PC the PC is stuck on the windows screen.

Don't worry I'll try to help you out.

Did you make any software or hardware changes on your PC?

Do you get any error message while your PC is stuck on the windows screen?

Please provide the product number of your PC to assist you better.

As you mentioned when your power on your PC the PC is stuck on the windows screen.

Also as you mentioned you ran a hardware diagnostics on your PC and the test passed.

Try few steps recommended below.

To perform a hard reset on a computer with a removable battery, use the following steps:
Turn off the computer.
Remove the computer from any port replicator or docking station.
Disconnect all external connected peripheral devices such as USB storage devices, external displays, and printers.
Unplug the AC adapter from the computer.
Remove the battery from the battery compartment.
Press and hold down the Power button for about 15 seconds to drain any residual electrical charge from the capacitors that protect the memory.
Insert the battery and plug the AC adapter back into the notebook computer, but do not connect any of the peripheral devices.
Press the Power button to turn on the computer.
If a startup menu opens, use the arrow keys to select Start Windows Normally, then press the Enter key.
After reconnecting each of the peripheral devices, run Windows Update and HP Support Assistant to update all device drivers. See Updating Drivers and Software with Windows Update (Windows 10, 😎 and Using HP Support Assistant (Windows 10, 8, 7) for more information.

Try restoring the BIOS to default and check if it helps.

1. Turn off the computer and wait five seconds.
2. Press the Power button to start the computer and repeatedly press the F10 key to enter the BIOS setup menu.
3. On the BIOS Setup screen, press F9 to select and load the BIOS Setup Default settings.
4. Press F10 to Save and Exit.
5. Use the arrow keys to select Yes, then press Enter when asked Exit Saving Changes?
6. Follow the prompts to restart your computer.

If the issue still persists try performing a Microsoft system restore on your PC and check if it helps.

Refer this article to know more information about using Microsoft system restore.

If the issue still persists after trying out the steps try performing a complete system recovery on your PC.

Refer this article to know more information about performing a system recovery on your PC.

Note: Performing a recovery will erase the data on your PC. 

If you are not able to perform restore or recovery on your PC. Please contact HP support and order a set of recovery discs to reimage the operating system.

Link to contact HP.

If the solution provided worked for you, please mark accepted solution for this post.

Let me know if this works!

Have a wonderful day ahead! 🙂

Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.

Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

[GMorse · Accepted solution]

Well after extensive diagnostics and analysis and playing around with USB sticks with various tools.

It came down to reseating the SSD, caused a stuck boot.  Reseating again and it was still causing troubles, I put Intel RST and again was blue screening with INVALID STORE EXCEPTION.

Got rid of the 24GB SSD.  Bought a 240GB SSD.  Time to finish RST once and for all.

Shrunk the Windows partition to around 185GB by deleting files first, defragmenting (to avoid long boot process and benefit on the SSD) and finally using Easeus.  Migrated the OS to the SSD (EFI partition, Windows partition, then a page file partition and finally the Windows recovery partition) while having a data partition and the HP recovery partition on the 1TB drive, the default on new HP laptops.  A lot of games with changing the BCD entries.

And Windows boots instantly and the machine is blazing fast, 7 years later, and a lot more stable and reliable without using this old cost cutting caching technology which Intel is starting to phase out based on the price of SSDs.

However, the EFI partition had to be copied back to the 1TB drive.

For some reason the BIOS in the HP Envy 15, does not allow specifying which drive is the UEFI drive.  It defaults to Port 0, or the 1TB drive first, then Port 1 or the mSATA SSD.  Removing the 1TB hard drive and it boots fine.  But with both, I have to still put the EFI partition on the 1TB drive which is annoying.  Perhaps removing the GPT table would help it skip Port 0, but right now I am unsure why it gives the no hard drive error getting stuck at Port 0 and not skipping to the next drive, and not providing any BIOS configuration.  It was intended to use as a cache drive and HP's bottom line will probably be that.

I suspect using BIOS unlocking tools, and some potentially dangerous reconfigurations in that area this could be fixed, or possibly changing the GPT to an MBR drive might do the same.  New laptops have better BIOSes.

It is difficult to diagnose a bad SSD.  And a painfully annoying waste of time and money...  Anyone with an old laptop with a cache mSATA would be wise to spend the $100 to upgrade it to a respectable 128+GB SSD and boot off it and stop with the caching which can cause a catastrophe and difficult to diagnose problem when the drive blows out (4 and a half years in this case).

[A4Apollo]

@GMorse, Thanks for your quick response and time.

I appriciate your efforts for writing back to us.

As you mentioned after doing some software changes on your PC, your PC is working fine.

I'm glad to know your issue got resolved.

If you have any queries in future related to any HP products, you can always reach out to us.

We will try our best to help you out.

Take care,

Have a great day! 🙂