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We get variations of what is essentially the same question all the time: the system doesn't start Windows, dropping to PXE boot and failing and/or throwing a "no bootable device" or similar error. The answer is the same nearly every time. We ought to collect all these questions and have one question to rule them all.

In the spirit of this earlier Meta question, I've posted a new canonical question aiming to cover all these cases. I intend to close all other questions of this kind as duplicates of this canonical question. If you have any suggestions on how to go about doing this, be sure to post them here.

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  • I don't have time to hunt down the dupes, but will happily vote. Can we create a list of candidates?
    – fixer1234
    Jun 15, 2017 at 6:25
  • 1
    The list of linked questions is a good place to start; I've already identified more than two dozen likely duplicates. The duplicate close vote review queue is probably even better, since I already voted to close on those likely dupes.
    – bwDraco
    Jun 15, 2017 at 6:47

1 Answer 1

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One idea would be to use a custom SQL query with the SE Data Explorer tool, and the Compose Query option to do the searching part and bring you back a list of links to correlated questions.

enter image description here

You could search all questions where the title or body contains certain strings or phrases such as: "the system doesn't start Windows" "no bootable device", etc.

Custom Query Example

I didn't write this query for performance or per best practices so it's just give a quick and simple example of one method to go about helping you with the task of identifying potentially related questions to help speed up your process.

SELECT id as [Post Link], *
FROM Posts
WHERE
     (lower(Title) LIKE lower('%##Text##%')) OR
     (lower(Body) LIKE lower('%##Text##%')) AND
     PostTypeId = 1
ORDER BY CreationDate

Data Explorer Example

enter image description here

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  • The site's built-in search engine is powerful enough to do this easily – there's no need to use SEDE. You can search for whole phrases by enclosing them in double quotes and use parameters like closed:0 to isolate the search to open questions. It's all documented in the help center and IMHO is one of the most powerful tools in the arsenal for site moderation. (I've used it to shut down massive spam rings in the past.)
    – bwDraco
    Jun 23, 2017 at 0:14
  • @bwDraco I didn't know about all the functionality packed into the SU search engine with this regard but I'll read up on it when I get some time. I'm curious why you asked a question specifically about "any suggestions on how to go about doing this" if you already have a method to do so? Since I'm already very familiar with SQL, I already understand the SEDE interface and how to write queries but I'll learn about the advanced search features of the built-in search engine for sure. Jun 23, 2017 at 2:29
  • @bwDraco I also didn't realize you were such a spam hunter and identifier on SU either. I also didn't realize your other views such as politics on your Tweets sir. I'm a fan; I like your perspective on things and your work here as well Mr. Wo~, Jun 23, 2017 at 19:30
  • Thanks :) I've a long history of fighting spam on Super User. Also, #CaligulaTrump :P
    – bwDraco
    Jun 23, 2017 at 19:33

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