Improper setup, now won't boot

Madbeggar

New member
I finally got around to setting up my N42C today.

I installed the included m.2 SSD card, but forgot that I did so when I later read the directions, which state to NOT install the card before activating W10 Pro AND THEN disabling eMMC Support.

I happily plugged along, installing and modifying W10 to suit me. Everything looked splendid.

Then I realized that I'd already installed the card! Well, it's too late now, I thought.

So I disabled the eMMC Support and rebooted. The boot screen reported an error about not finding Device Mapping Table.
I took the m.2 card out and rebooted. This time a different error: cannot find required map name.
I reinstalled the card and rebooted, but re-enabled the eMMC support. A whole new list of errors appeared re: PCIroot and harddisk.
I removed the m.2 card and tried rebooting with eMMC enabled, but get the device mapping table error.

I know zero about BIOS. How do I save this situation?
 
I finally got around to setting up my N42C today.

I installed the included m.2 SSD card, but forgot that I did so when I later read the directions, which state to NOT install the card before activating W10 Pro AND THEN disabling eMMC Support.

I happily plugged along, installing and modifying W10 to suit me. Everything looked splendid.

Then I realized that I'd already installed the card! Well, it's too late now, I thought.

So I disabled the eMMC Support and rebooted. The boot screen reported an error about not finding Device Mapping Table.
I took the m.2 card out and rebooted. This time a different error: cannot find required map name.
I reinstalled the card and rebooted, but re-enabled the eMMC support. A whole new list of errors appeared re: PCIroot and harddisk.
I removed the m.2 card and tried rebooting with eMMC enabled, but get the device mapping table error.

I know zero about BIOS. How do I save this situation?

Just to be sure, your SSD doesn't support NVMe does it? (The N42C-4 itself doesn't support NVMe SSD's!!). (Just re-read that it was an included MINIX SSD, so ignore this question ;).)

Otherwise, I never activated the copy of Win 10 on the eMMC of my N42C-4 before installing & actively using Win 10 on an SSD, all without any problems at all ;).

Try removing the SSD & revert your BIOS to the default settings, then save & exit.

Once you've determined that the device will boot normally from the eMMC, try again with the SSD but it might be a good idea to start again from step 1 as far as your SSD is concerned.
 
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Just to be sure, your SSD doesn't support NVMe does it? (The N42C-4 itself doesn't support NVMe SSD's!!). (Just re-read that it was an included MINIX SSD, so ignore this question ;).)

Thanks, ArcticWolf.
You are correct about the SSD.

I've had a confusing experience with this because I was working on multiple projects (in addition to a fundamental ignorance about setup).

I just upgraded my laptop with a new (larger) m.2, and swapped its HDD for an SSD. I installed 16GB RAM in the MINIX, then I imaged the original MINIX 128GB m.2 to my laptop's old 256GB m.2 and installed *that* into the MINIX and booted up. (I was so excited about new gear that I put the cart before the horse. I should have read the horse's instructions first.) Things went awry when I (according to the instructions) disabled the South Cluster and MINIX was booting into EFI or IP4 or IP6 or something. That's when I reached out for help. And using the "optimized default" settings didn't seem to help with boot order - I believe I had to do that manually.

Anyway, I tried every iteration of m.2 cards (and no card) and boot options. At some point, after messing with the BIOS, it booted from the 256GB m.2 and started the setup all over again. So, I began creating my user ID all over, then panicked, and walked away. Later, it got turned off accidentally. When I tried logging in again to finish, the system couldn't find its own wifi, and it couldn't find its device manager!

Right now, I can boot into the eMMC. It has (I think) my first installation attempt, the one that went smoothly. If I install an SSD, the eMMC shows up as C:, and the SSD as an extra drive. If I disable the SC and boot into the original SSD card, it starts a new setup. I'm gonna do that now, and hope for the best. Then, if all goes well, I'll copy the image to the 256GB SSD.

But, I'm still ignorant about all of this. The SSD box says the OS is pre-installed on *it*. So, what was on the eMMC? How did it boot into Windows w/o the SSD? Why can't it boot into the SSD w/o that original step with the eMMC? And, once the eMMC is disabled, isn't that just wasted memory? Wouldn't it be better to boot into the eMMC and have the SSD as an extra drive?
 
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We recommend that users use larger storage for the boot drive if possible, the reason is to avoid insufficient storage space during Windows update and affects the update process.

NEO-N4-128GB or NEO-N4-SSD-240GB M.2 SSD is pre-installed with Windows 10 Pro OS, so, you only need to install the NEO-N4-128GB M.2 SSD on NEO N42C-4 to use Windows.

Since UEFI Shell was accidentally set as the highest priority boot option (boot option #1). Therefore make the SSD as the Boot option #1.

The way to resolve it is to set the 'boot option priorities' in the right order.
https://theminixforum.com/index.php?threads/uefi-shell-problem.20/
 
I was able to set up a new install per my previous comment. I spent several hours loading software, setting up bookmarks, etc. All looks good!

Except: when I cloned the MINIX SSD to the old 256GB SATA SSD that I pulled out of my laptop, and installed that instead, and confirmed that it's recognized and booting from that larger SSC, I end up with some problems, including no wifi adapter and no access to the Windows Device Manager. (It spits out a long numeric string, followed by something "not found", IIRC.) If I put the MINIX SSD back in (and set it to boot from that) it works fine.

What could be the problem? Could the SSD (Micron MTFDDAV256TBN) be incompatible?
 
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no access to the Windows Device Manager.
That's most odd. Have you tried completing SFC (powershell or cmd in admin mode -> sfc /scannow -> let it complete and post the output)? What did you use to clone the drive? If it was truly successful, everything should work (including WIFI adapter).
 
I ran sfc on the MINIX (original) card, to make sure I was starting clean. It returned with hundreds of lines, forcing me to read up on sfc in an attempt to figure out how to deal it. (I never did.) It's overwhelming. (But thank you, tonemapped, for the suggestion as I would not have known sfc existed.)

But I went through several iterations of Windows Update, hoping that a bad file might get replaced along the way. I'm not sure if that is what happened, but eventually I was delivered a clean sfc report!

I cloned the clean MINIX drive to the Micron drive. (The process felt different than my previous effort, so perhaps I screwed something up on my previous attempt.) I swapped the drives, set Windows Boot Manager as first choice in BIOS, and then booted up. Success!

But then, one or two restarts later, it failed to boot. I went into the BIOS menu and could no longer find Windows. I swapped the drives and it worked using the MINIX card. Hmmm...

I tried to re-clone the Micron card, but now it wasn't being found by Windows. In disk management, it showed up as "uninitialized". I tried to initialize it, but got an error: "Virtual Disk Manager: The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error." In "Properties", there are no options to check the disk integrity. I took it to another computer and it also was not being recognized. I tried two different USB cables.

It appears that either, 1) the Micron card is bad, or 2) the external card reader is bad. I suspect that #1 is true because the new OS clone went bad between boot-ups while the card was mounted in the MINIX.
 
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