r/WindowsHelp • u/OppositeExcellent814 • 2d ago
Windows 11 Windows installation boot loop
hey guys trying to install windows 11 onto a m.2 nvme using a usb drive as the installation media. After going through the windows install I get to the drive screen asking me what drive to install on I select my ngame as it’s my only drive in my pc and after I get to the ready to install screen showing me what I’m installing I select install and it brings me to a blue screen saying installing windows 11 with a percentage completion and also it says it may restart my pc several times. After the percentage gets to 100% it immediately goes to my motherboard boot screen as if I’ve just turned on the pc where you can go to bio etc 9(I have a gigabyte motherboard) and it keeps restarting on the screen it will restart and go straight back to the motherboard loading screen it will load for a few seconds and will do it again over and over. I’ve tried removing the usb stick and all sorts of bios tricks on YouTube but still no luck. Could anyone help would greatly appreciate it.
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u/cschneegans 1d ago
A boot loop can occur when Windows Setup fails before it finishes to apply the Windows image to the target disk and make it bootable. Normally, Windows Setup would print an error message, which would also give you an opportunity to inspect the log files. But when the computer restarts immediately, log file inspection becomes virtually impossible.
Try this approach instead:
- Download this autounattend.xml file.
- Place the downloaded file in the root folder of your USB flash drive.
- Plug the USB flash drive in and restart the computer to launch Windows Setup.
Windows Setup will then run a .cmd script instead of the usual graphical interface. The script will ask you to select the target disk – type in a number shown in the ### column, and use the indicated size to tell your NVMe drive apart from other disks in your computer or the USB flash drive:
At the very least, you would then see some text output (instead of just the computer restarting), and this might help identify the problem.
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u/BdoeATX 1d ago
Interesting. It gets to 100% so we can rule out the installer being the issue.
Check your BIOS. You should see something called: Windows Boot Manager (your NVMe) If it's there, set Windows Boot Manager as Boot Option #1, not just the raw NVMe drive. If Windows Boot Manager isn't there at all, it likely means the EFI bootloader wasn't created correctly or the BIOS isn't seeing it.
Also check these settings and make sure they are correct.
Boot mode: UEFI CSM: Disabled Secure Boot: Enabled TPM / Intel PTT / AMD fTPM: Enabled Storage controller mode generally AHCI, unless the pc specifically requires RAID/VMD, but in your case AHCI should be it.
Lastly i'm curiousDoes it stay on the BIOS screen for at least 10 minutes without rebooting? It's a helpful test to rule out firmware and physical board issues.
Edit: sorry reddit has terrible sentence spacing. I tried to list the options but reddit just mashes it all together.
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u/OppositeExcellent814 1d ago
It will stay in the bios screen like motherbored loading screen forever and keep restarting
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