If you're actually serious about getting this PC working, you'd follow USAFRet's advice in post #371. Wipe everything and install Windows normally. Then, go from there.
I'm sorry to be blunt, but you could have had a working PC for months now. I've been here for nearly 15 years, and this is the most disastrous attempt to install a working OS that I have seen. If you're not willing to do that, then leave your PC at a shop and let them try to clean up this godawful mess.
None of this is hard. But through a combination of stubbornness and lack of technical expertise, you have made it so. Hitting unfollow in this thread; any second spent in hanging around in this discussion could be better used to assist someone who actually can be helped.
eg I dont see why as an experiment I cannot just remove and store temporarily the M.2 with the OSes, and try your suggestion on the other 2 M.2 drives, the 2T and the 4T under the inaccessible frozr for M2_2 and M2_3.
You can do that. Even i have done it, whereby: clone the OS over to 2nd drive, make sure the clone is bootable and then store the cloned OS on another drive as offline backup.
With this, my Skylake and Haswell builds have two such backup bootable OS drives, per PC, in storage. One drive holds bootable Win7 (prior to the point i upgraded to Win10) and 2nd drive holds bootable Win10. Since two PCs, total of 4x drives (2x Win7 and 2x Win10). And the drives for offline storage are SATA3 Samsung 870 Evo 1TB SSDs. Easy to hook up to PC when needed.
Why would you need 5x Win installs on the same drive? E.g 3x Win10 installs. Isn't one Win10 good enough? Why have three?
But like all others, i too suggest that you put one OS per one drive. Easiest this way.
Best course of action: Install one OS to the drive, either Win10 or Win11. Once you can boot into it, use Virtual Machine to get other instances of Win10 and Win11.
Dual-, triple-, multi-boot is not my forte and i can't help you troubleshoot this. I specialize on hardware and it's issues. And by the looks of it, hardware wise, your build now works fine. (Hence why i haven't replied here for a while.)
If you're actually serious about getting this PC working, you'd follow USAFRet's advice in post #371. Wipe everything and install Windows normally. Then, go from there.
I'm sorry to be blunt, but you could have had a working PC for months now. I've been here for nearly 15 years, and this is the most disastrous attempt to install a working OS that I have seen.
I did have win10 installed early on, but I was advised I had allocated too little disk space, at first I doubted this, but once I installed some win 10 software I could see it takes up much more space than on 32 bit and XP, and I would need to allocate a lot more.
rather than reformat and start again, I decided to experiment a bit with multi OS boots, and I did get 3 installs of win10 and 2 of win11 and 2 installs of Linux Mint on that disk, no problem at all, where I can reconfigure to boot directly to any of those 7 OS installs and can still do that now. for reconfiguring the Windows boot OS, when Windows shows the list of installed windows versions, it has an option to change the default boot. to boot to Linux instead, I have to configure that from the UEFI where it has 2 loaders, one for Linux and one for Windows.
the problems began when I tried to install on a 2nd disk, which is where the install disk doesnt work at all. but I will try the MO from the link in #375,
see later comments replying to #375,
I can see reading the URL given in #375 that maybe its a case of the system breaking from overcomplexity of the scenario. so I will try the advice to pare the system down to the absolute minimum of drives scenario, the URL warns about the system breaking if you dont pare down to a minimum.
ie I will try the idea of one OS per disk, and do this on either 2 or 3 disks.
I have been reading that, and have noted the advice to remove all disks other than the target disk and install disk, and to have no partitions, so will try that. its a bit of a performance as I will have to remove the graphics card and 2 of the M.2s and store these away, so I dont want to do it in a hurry which realistically means I will try this on Tuesday, as Monday I wont have sufficient uninterrupted time as I have to do a shopping trek, and have other commitments later, but I should have the entire day Tuesday to try things uninterrupted.
Now the thumbdrive has meanwhile downloaded fully. and with the system as it is currently with the 3 M.2 drives, I cannot find in the UEFI boot the thumbdrive as a boot option.
I tried also connecting it directly to the back panel to the flash drive USB A socket, and it still doesnt appear.
Now maybe when I remove all the drives on Tuesday, it will appear as an option, but I want some confirmation whether the win 10 install flash drive can function from any USB socket, or only from some. eg the bluray drive win 10 install functions fine from the 10 socket USB 3 hub.
I dont want to remove the graphics card, remove all the M.2 drives except a fully deleted one, and then find I cannot boot the flash drive, and have to then reinsert stuff in order to visit the forum. I can of course visit the forum from my 2010 PC, but the optical drives dont function properly, and the wireless only functions for a limited time which might not be enough to download an iso. there is a further option which is to use the 2023 laptop, but I have to install the bluray burning software.
I noted from the above URL to disable secure boot and fast boot, I am fairly certain I have secure boot disabled from the UEFI, and fast boot disabled from Windows, namely control panel -> power options ->
choose what the power buttons do -> change settings that are currently unavailable -> uncheck: Turn on fast startup (recommended). You need that to access Windows NTFS on Linux. without that, the NTFS disks are read only on Linux.
I dont need 5! but I am testing the multi OS aspect, because I would like 2 of each, where one is a scratch install in order to test riskier things. Also to test out whether I could install a future Windows 12 to the same disk. I have 8 licenses currently for 10+11 and plan to buy maybe 4 further ones, because at some point you wont be able to buy win 10 + 11 anymore, and I think win 10 is a "major" version of Windows. I think XP was also, and I wish I had bought several of XP. with XP I just have a few stand alone 32 bit licenses, and one 64 bit license,
basically I need to experiment on a scratch system, rather than doing fully fledged installs on say win 10 + 11, and then 3 years later attempting to install win 12, and finding I can no longer load win 10 + 11.
by pushing multi OS now, I learn the art of the possible when it doesnt matter if everything goes wrong.
but if you have been using an OS for 3 years, and then everything goes wrong it is very frustrating, has happened where I tried to repair an XP install, and it could no longer be loaded, all the browser history and bookmarks inacessible.
I have since 2006, ie for 18 years had multi OS PCs, eg to have windows XP home edition, XP professional, Ubuntu Linux, and more recently with my 2010 PC, I have kept my XP boot from 2010, and have also the 32 bit win 10 from a few years ago, where I can boot to either.
with my 2007 laptop I have a 2nd install of Windows when the 1st install ran out of space, as some of the stuff on the 1st install cannot be moved to another install. where I migrated the 120G system disk to a much bigger disk, and then put a further install in the extra space.
eg with my 2010 PC, I can reboot to XP to access the browser histories there: at the time I was able to migrate the bookmarks to the 32 bit win 10, but the history was stranded. more recently I found trick ways to access the history. but had I abandoned that install, I couldnt have more recently re-accessed it to access the history.
you can definitely install multiple versions of windows on a PC, including multiple installs of the same version, I have been testing the limits of this. I have been able to install an unlimited amount of these to the same disk, but on filling up that disk fully, the windows install disks are bricked up. the windows installs themselves arent bricked up.
but I will try on Tuesday USAFRet's idea of one OS per disk, before trying to do more than one to any disk, his advice sounds right, but is a bit of a performance to do hence the delay.
Originally I just had 1 M.2 disk in the system, when I installed win 10, so the advice in the url USAFRet gave would explain why that worked and why now things arent working.
knowing about multi OS boots to an elite level, means I can do extra things, eg potentially I could have win10, win11, win12, win13 on the same machine, able to directly boot to any. right now I can directly boot to any of 7 OSes, 3 x win10, 2 x win11, 2 x Mint, and en route resetting one win10 OS led to the UEFI getting bricked out, where I eventually found how to fix that, which is via the windows install disk repair option.
I like to get to the elite level of things, which requires dabbling with the unknown, bigger picture there is no danger because you can just back up all data before an experiment. the mobo or PC might get bricked up permanently, but not the data! worst case I just have to access the data from my 2023 win 11 laptop!
BTW I cant find a windows license on that HP laptop, with my 2007 laptop and my 2004 HP Pavilion PC, both have the windows license on a fancy sticker somewhere on the machine. do machines always have the license somewhere?
I like to get to the elite level of things, which requires dabbling with the unknown, bigger picture there is no danger because you can just back up all data before an experiment.
BTW I cant find a windows license on that HP laptop, with my 2007 laptop and my 2004 HP Pavilion PC, both have the windows license on a fancy sticker somewhere on the machine. do machines always have the license somewhere?
but I will try on Tuesday USAFRet's idea of one OS per disk, before trying to do more than one to any disk, his advice sounds right, but is a bit of a performance to do hence the delay.
@Richard1234 does things differently. Most people need advice on how to get from problem to solution and back to gaming as quickly as possible. Some have specific problems related to CAD or audio software or drivers, or less mainstream hardware or 3d printers.
And then there's people who experiment with PCs and go off the beaten path.
Don't get too frustrated if Richard wants to go Mad Scientist with his PC. Or if he's set in his ways or goes against the grain. The point is to enjoy and learn with this machine.
It is a little bit more difficult to offer help but you don't owe him any.
What is true is that specific problems should be in their own thread instead of one can of worms containing other cans of worms (though it may be for the best...)
in preparation for tomorrow, can you clarify about using a windows 10 thumbdrive install,
can that be attached to any USB3 socket of the machine including via hubs?
I just wonder if there is a problem with the flash drive, I bought it in recent weeks from a supermarket and it isnt appearing as a boot option in the BIOS. But another flash drive from several years ago does appear.
I wondered also if it might appear as a CD drive as the filesystem is a CD filesystem. on the Windows desktop, the MSI driver install flash drive appears as a CD drive, and is even called "MB Support CD".
I'll create a further installation bluray in case the flash drive doesnt work when I remove the graphics card and all but one drive.
I found one other thing by experiment which is that when I deleted the 2nd Linux install on the disk with the other OSes, the 1st install no longer loads, the ubuntu loader is there but now just gives a shell. this does mean if a Linux install becomes problematic it may be best to leave it in place.
ok, following the idea of removing absolutely everything, except an empty disk and the thumbdrive did work!
but first of all before erasing tranches of stuff, I wanted to do some experiments, and these took a lot of time, I decided to re-establish a backup of the system disk from before the problems, and that took some hours to do. Windows booted fine, as did Linux from that.
but the same problem when I insert the windows install disk. even though at that point in time I was able to install further ones.
what I did now was backup the one data partition on the OSes drive, which didnt take long. and now to the advised MO, where I detached both SATA WD blue drives, detached the 500G Samsung SSD data drive, I then removed the graphics card.
and this is where things turned sour, the damned PCI latch broke off!
I STRONGLY ADVISE ANYONE READING THIS TO NOT BUY THE MSI ACE MOBO, its a bad design, and the documentation is rubbish. eg it has the wrong info on the latch for the M2_2 and M2_3 drives, it shows the latch for the M2_4 which shuts at a different angle, the diagram of the latches of the memory card sockets also are wrong, and the youtube video is of a different mobo, and has music so you cant hear what is going on. that is so unprofessional to have music playing on some expensive technical install, its a mobo not a disco! it is complicated and fraught with danger, SILENCE PLEASE. the vid music preventing you hearing the click, and any click would be the wrong mobo! their webpage on flashing the bios doesnt mention that it has to be a FAT32 flash drive, not a FAT drive:
they havent properly prototyped nor tested out their product nor its manual, it is incompetent manufacture. if that is how incompetent the user accessible part of the product is, I dread to think what the user inaccessible part is like!
there is no space between the graphics card and the Be Quiet! cooler, if you are foolish enough to buy this mobo, only use it with a liquid cooler, otherwise you will curse the day you spent the wheelbarrow of money that it costs.
if you get a big cooler, the only way to remove the graphics card safely is to remove the cooler, but that means you will have to clean off and apply the thermal toothpaste each time.
dont make the mistake I made, dont buy this mobo, its an expensive mistake, thank heavens I didnt buy the godlike.
the inevitable has happened where I was using a pen with the cap on, pressing the latch with the pen cap, and this time the flimsy plastic broke off. why cant they use metal latches? instead some feeble plastic junk. maybe make the latches with biscuits. no doubt the intense heat of the graphics card has baked the plastic where pushing it with a bic pen cap has crumbled the stupid latch as if it were a biscuit.
at some point I will probably junk the mobo and buy a Gigabyte one. I think this MSI mobo is for gamers who dont use peripheral hardware.
whereas I maxx out on peripheral hardware, I already have 3 M.2 drives, a 10 port USB3 hub, a USB3 quad layer external optical drive, 2 magnetic 2T SATA drives, an internal SATA optical drive, approx 7 USB enclosed SATA drives, an unknown amount of external USB drives, a lot of flashdrives, a USB 35mm film scanner, a USB2 A3 scanner, etc. at some points I have had all 10 ports of the hub in use, where I was considering buying a second hub,
my usage is beyond the scope of this pathetic mobo, its not an ACE its a JOKER.
this MSI ACE is inadequate for someone like me, it is DEFICIENT. the cpu should be at least an inch further north, or the graphics card slot ought to be the middle one, the graphics card shouldnt eclipse 2 M2 drives. You shouldnt have to remove the mobo in order to change the CMOS battery, that really is ridiculous and an instant fail. its a jungle of bad decisions, and that is just the bad decisions I have had to experience. have I forgot any bad decisions? you bet, eg the sideways pointing SATA sockets, which are a nightmare to access, rather than the well designed upward pointing ones of my 2010 Gigabyte, and then the mobo supplying a 90 degree sata cable, which is so pointless, it cant be used at the mobo, and at the device it has to arrive from below thus obstructing whatever is below. the mobo has 6 sata sockets, yet they only supply 4 sata cables, with one a dud 90 degree effort, considering the extortionate price, why not supply a full set of direct plugs?
anyway back to the progress report, I removed all the internal hard disks, I then did try the optical drive with the windows 10 install bluray, and got the same unattended error message. then I removed the 10 port USB 3 hub, where now only the empty M.2 2T drive at M2_4, and the thumbdrive.
tried booting, and nothing happening, the mobo counter stablising at non error codes.
tried again, and nothing doing. eventually realised it was because I had removed the video cables when removing the graphics card!
found what looked like the video cable from the back panel, but it was HDMI. so this time traced the lengthy cable from the back panel USB3 C socket, and this led to a DP plug. aha, need to remove the current DP which was from the graphics card.
and now I got the proper Windows 10 install from the thumbdrive, and after much calculation, decided on 560GB= 560 x 1024MB = 573440 MB for Win10.
Now although I was advised to install just one OS and try this out, because of the hassle of removing the graphics card where the PCIe latch is now broken,
I dont want to have to remove the graphics card again for a long time.
so the plan is to get 1 instance of Win10 and 1 instance of Win11 from this drive, and possibly 1 instance of Linux Mint. I did that before, so should be able to again.
the longer term plan is
win10 : 560GB, win11: 560GB, win12 or win13 or .... : 560GB, Linux Mint 83GB; 102401 MB unused forever.
and then a second drive, with 200GB for win10, win11, win12 or .... ; scratch installs, 3.
where I can test out more risky things, eg Browser import and export, eg does a browser merge or overwrite the imported stuff.
this will use up 4 of my win10 + win11 licenses, and leave 4 for future use. win12 no doubt will need new license keys.
Now on installing Win10, I havent done the 2nd stage which is the drivers, so currently I cannot use the internet yet, and am posting this from my 2010 PC.
also I will need a 2nd thumbdrive to put the win 11 installer onto, unless .... see later.
So the only way forwards was to install Linux Mint, which I tried, and of course selected the wrong option where it devoured the rest of the disk. I set 560GB= 560 x 1024 MB, for win10, and then Linux Mint has the remaining 1314111MB with only 32.37GB in use! no warning about the size it will take, where you find out after the install has completed, but realise much sooner when it says it is copying files!
Now that thumbdrive is also another bad decision, its one of these modern tiny thumbdrives, and the problem is it is a major hassle to remove from the sockets, as you have to literally grip the item with your finger tips, you cant get a healthy grip on the ridiculously small garbage. I had to remove the neighbouring extender to access it properly and even then it is some effort to remove.
so any future thumbdrives need to be longer like they were 20 years ago.
I then decided to reinstall Linux Mint again, and use their OEM custom install option, and reused the same space, but much less and used the far end.
and afterwards, Windows 10 boots fine, and Linux boots fine.
and then a test, does the optical win10 installer disk work?
I connected it to the 10 hub, and connected that to the back panel, and no it doesnt, I get the unattended error.
ok, what about if I connect it directly to the PC.
BINGO! it works!
at which point I think I have located the fault, its the damned MSI driver install flash drive, which is formatted as a CD, where it appears on Windows as a CD, yet is a flash drive!
I think this is what has been throwing the windows installer. that windows installer isnt just to install, it is vital for when windows doesnt boot, as the Repair option at the start fixes that.
further back in time, I kept that drive in the other room, and only after installing a version of Windows, I would temporarily connect it as I didnt want to wear it out, as these drives can get hot when connected up, and the heat gradually cooks the plastic and metal until eventually it crumbles like a biscuit.
but at some point I left it permanently connected, and now the windows installer would give spurious errors.
so in fact I maybe dont need to leave 102401 MB unused, but could distribute that between the win10, win11, win12 installs, and have 593GB each. so I may reformat the disk again, and this time get it right. if I allocated 600GB each, that would mean 83 - 21 = 62GB for Linux Mint. I think it is foolish aiming for round numbers, 593GB is just as good as 600GB.
for the scratch drives, I will remove all drives again, but I want to do this up front, then I wont need to install again until win12 or win13 comes out.
where originally I was installing several installs to the same disk, that was to stress test how it deals with this. as I have gotten into jeopardy more than once with OS installs, where an earlier install becomes inaccessible, I even had some Linux installs become inaccessible.
I need to get the 2 main windows installs done now to the one disk, and the 2 scratch installs to the other disk, where I will remove all drives except the target one, and just 1 install of Linux Mint, then to put the graphics card back and just hope it works, the computer would fail its MOT if it were a car without that latch.
and the I wont do any further Windows installs for a long time.
the unless .... see later mentioned earlier, is that if the MSI driver flash drive was obstructing the windows installer disk, maybe I can do everything with optical disks, like I did originally, an optical bluray BDR disk is maybe 20p, a thumbdrive is maybe 1500p! I just need to inspect everything attached via USB and remove the MSI driver flashdrive in particular.
All PCI-E slots have plastic clips, regardless the manufacturer. And if you brute force it, it will break off. After all, PCs are considered as delicate electronics.
this MSI ACE is inadequate for someone like me, it is DEFICIENT. the cpu should be at least an inch further north, or the graphics card slot ought to be the middle one, the graphics card shouldnt eclipse 2 M2 drives. You shouldnt have to remove the mobo in order to change the CMOS battery, that really is ridiculous and an instant fail. its a jungle of bad decisions, and that is just the bad decisions I have had to experience. have I forgot any bad decisions? you bet, eg the sideways pointing SATA sockets, which are a nightmare to access, rather than the well designed upward pointing ones of my 2010 Gigabyte, and then the mobo supplying a 90 degree sata cable, which is so pointless, it cant be used at the mobo, and at the device it has to arrive from below thus obstructing whatever is below. the mobo has 6 sata sockets, yet they only supply 4 sata cables, with one a dud 90 degree effort, considering the extortionate price, why not supply a full set of direct plugs?
Your one flaw was to not consider how much you are set in your ways, and how much your demands are behind the times.
Consider how much of these problems were caused by user error, and not just design or trends.
You don't owe it to the modern PC industry to adapt to the new ways of doing things, but they are different because these are new solutions to problems that weren't obvious before, or could not be improved upon before.
What you list above is all an improvement or compromise.
Drives have been moved directly onto the motherboard while keeping the ATX spec in tact. I still like HHDs just fine but the NVMe cuts out several middle-men and achieves unbelievable speed. All that without introducing a new standard and breaking with decades of motherboard design.
Being attached directly, NVMe drives are not normally meant to be moved around, but it can be done. You complain about the flawed design but the flaw is that you wanted to replace drives far too frequently. And for what? To try and see if it's actually worth it to install multiple OSs on partitions instead of following the one drive, one OS rule. It's recommended procedure for a reason.
You shouldn't need to remove the CMOS battery on a high end motherboard. Clearing CMOS can be done with the push of a button even on cheap boards.
You were advised to test your components in a breadboarding setup where you have easy access to everything.
And ultimately, you were determined to test your PC's limits which is why you needed to resort to clearing CMOS so often.
To be fair, when i assembled my recent PC, i had to clear CMOS three times for a very stupid, and user unfriendly reason. It was all caused by a faulty USB stick supplied by Microsoft.
So these things happen even with the best intentions. As best as i can understand your motherboard's battery only needs to be replaced when it dies, so the problem of it's inconvenient location is of your own making.
The SATA ports next, and why you think ports pointing straight up are superior? They were angled sideways to make it more convenient to connect drives located in different places, places HDDs/SSDs couldn't be installed in in old PC cases. Also, it made cable management easier. It was fine to leave ports pointing up ages ago, before tidying up internal wiring was a thing.
The 90 degree SATA cable is not for the motherboard, it is for the HDD/ODD. Sometimes, hooking it up with a straight cable is impossible because there is too little room. So the alternative is provided.
Few people ever use more than 1-2 SATA cables, if that many. Cables are cheap. MSi provided 4, which is 2 too many. You may be right that 6 ports deserves 6 cables, but in practise it's a waste.
C'mon now. The road was practically paved for you, advice-wise. You insisted on digging it up and replacing it with cobblestone. Don't complain about the bumpy ride.
The SATA ports next, and why you think ports pointing straight up are superior? They were angled sideways to make it more convenient to connect drives located in different places, places HDDs/SSDs couldn't be installed in in old PC cases. Also, it made cable management easier. It was fine to leave ports pointing up ages ago, before tidying up internal wiring was a thing.
To showcase to @Richard1234 the old, upwards SATA ports and new, sideways SATA ports;
Left side is my old AMD build with ECS MoBo from ~2011. Right side is my Skylake build with MSI MoBo from 2016:
As seen from left image, SATA cables have to do 90 degree turn for me to able to reroute them behind MoBo tray, just to try and make clean looking build (with good cable management). Also, it isn't good for cable to have many bends in it.
While on the right image, very little of SATA cables are actually seen and cable essentially can go straight behind MoBo tray, with minimal bend.
Or look from the right image at the 24-pin ATX power cable (the red one), which connector is placed upright and power cables have to do huge bend (180 degrees) before going behind MoBo tray.
as I now have an MO to install Windows for sure, I am experimenting to find what liberties work and what dont as regards multi OS installs, where USAFRet's advised MO is the insurance policy.
with a huge amount of reboots, and reformattings, and reinstalls, I have established some unusual facts so far.
where the current plan for the eventual destination is a main disk with 621GB for win10, 621GB for win11, and 621GB undecided, where that may either be scratch installs, or a future win12 or win13.
anyway, the reason people find multi OS installs tricky is they go via thumbdrive installs, these are a total nightmare, where you have to remove all drives except the installer thumbdrive and the target unformatted disk. this MO advised by USAFRet appears to be guaranteed to work. no harm removing all irrelevant external drives, but its a bit of a performance removing internal drives.
now the reason it is tricky I think is because those thumbnail drives are USB AND are CD filing system, AND arent optical disks. this completely wrongfoots both the mobo and the installer software, and ultimately is a widespread bug of these systems, and only works if you force it to work by removing everything, where you corner the system into a final option to try to boot from the flashdrive. it is just bad engineering to have to remove everything to force a particular option. that is like having to change the fusebox every time you change a light bulb.
but if you go via optical disks, you will have a much better experience, which is maybe why my optical based attitude diverges beyond all recognition from most people here who are thumbdrive zealots! but there are nonetheless some obstructions that you have to remove. you DONT have to remove all drives, but there are some technicalities for installing via optical disks:
1. you MUST remove all flashdrives which use CD filing systems. eg the MSI driver installs flashdrive uses the CD filing system, and the windows installer also uses the CDFS. if either is attached, the install via optical disk is almost guaranteed to fail. experimenting, with both attached, the install completely fails with the unattended error message. if I remove just the MSI driver disk, it also fails but more subtly. so a good protocol is to only attach CDFS flashdrives at the time they are needed, otherwise remove them and consider them toxic eg the MSI driver flashdrive appears on the Cyberlink bluray burner as a bluray drive!
it is a spanner in the works.
2. if you have a disk with Windows installs on it. and leave that in the system, and have any number of other non CDFS disks, eg I tried with the 4T M.2 as a data disk, and a 500GB Samsung SSD as another data only disk. and have a blank further disk. you can install Windows to that via bluray, BUT it is accessed by the other disk's loader.
with one experiment, I used the re-established system disk with 2 x win10, 2 x win11, and Linux Mint, and installed via optical disk to the other empty disk, and it installed. but that disk doesnt have its own loader, but instead when I booted with the main system disk, that shows 5 installs of Windows now, 3 x win10, 2 x win11. and Linux Mint via its own loader. where selecting the new install, it then continued with the final steps of the windows 10 install, eventually getting to the new desktop. but no internet and no bluetooth as those need the MSI driver disk installs. so at this point to insert that toxic disk, and remove it afterwards.
Now originally I installed win10 on the 2nd disk, via all other disks removed. then I installed Linux Mint at the far end with all other disks removed. getting a new Windows loader, and a new Linux Mint ubuntu loader. with 2 windows loaders and 2 ubuntu loaders in the UEFI.
and now with the other OS disk present, the windows 10 install of a further win 10 to that disk fails.
but with all disks attached, including thumbdrives, but NO THUMBDRIVES WITH CDFS as these are toxic, ie ones which manifest as CDs on "This PC" on say Win10, so no win10 installer thumbdrive, no MSI driver thumbdrive, where I have the reinstated 2xwin10 + 2 x win11 + Mint disk (A) in the system,
then the bluray win10 installer via USB3 quad layer bluray writer, does install win10 to a completely empty further drive, where I have 3 M.2 drives attached, and a 500GB Samsung SATA SSD attached,
but that win10 appears on the loader of (A), which now shows 3xwin10 + 2xwin11, and Mint is accessed via its own loader via the UEFI. but if you now install Linux Mint, further windows installs to that disk can fail.
so to avoid problems, best to not have Linux Mint on the disk, although I think Linux Mint is ok to install on the same disk as Windows if that is the only OS disk at the time of installing and best to not install windows to a disk after you install Linux.
for each disk to have its own Windows loader, you just need to remove all other disks with Windows on them and remove all flashdrives with CDFS, and install Windows via an optical disk.
I think Linux Mint also goes via a unified loader.
so to get a Linux Mint loader for each disk with Linux Mint, you need to remove all other disks with Linux Mint, I think the flashdrives with CDFS arent a problem for installing Linux Mint via the optical drive.
via the bluray installer for Windows, to get a Windows loader for each disk with Windows, you need to remove all other disks with Windows installed, and also remove all thumbdrives with CDFS, ie which appear as if they are CDs on say "This PC" of Win10.
I think installing Linux Mint on a disk with windows is fine, but you can run into problems if you try to then install Windows to that disk, where the install might just fail completely. but no problem to then install Windows to another disk. Linux only causes problems for future windows installs to that disk. it doesnt affect earlier windows installs to that disk, nor windows installs to other disks, the problem in totality is a bit abstract.
so Linux Mint needs to be the last OS installed per disk, not per computer, whereupon the earlier installations of Windows will all function fine. if you delete a Linux install, the Linux loader will break completely and wont load other Linux installs of that loader. so DO NOT DELETE LINUX installs.
I think also best to only install OSes left to right, installing to the right or in the middle of unallocated space can cause problems. with the first disk I did install both Linux and Windows in the middle of unallocated space as an experiment. but with the second disk of OSes, I put Linux at the far end, and Windows said it didnt like this, and the install failed later on.
you definitely dont need to allocate the entire disk to Windows or Linux, just go via the custom install option, and state a sensible amount of MB, eg currently I am going for 635904MB = 621G = 1/3 x 2T
so for an easier life, the rules to follow are:
1. only install via optical media, thumbdrives are a nightmare way to install where you have to remove all drives other than installer and target. thumbdrives are literally 100x as expensive and much worse than optical installers.
2. remove all thumbdrives with CD filing system, which appear as if they were optical disks on Windows, these will break windows installs via optical disk and are generally toxic as they get misidentified variously.
3. remove all other disks with installs of the same OS genre (eg Windows or Linux) in order to force the install to create a loader per disk, where you can remove other disks without problem.
4. install left to right on the disk.
5. if you plan to install Linux Mint on the disk, put this as the last install where you only remove other disks with Linux Mint installed.
if you dont remove other disks with the same OS genre, the installer of that genre will unify to the existing loader, which is then a problem if you remove the other disk with the loader.
a further experiment I will try is if via the above steps, I install say win10 to disk1, and win10 to disk2, where each disk has its own loader, then with both disks present, I want to see what happens if I say install win11 to disk1, where does it load from? disk1 or disk2? and then if I install win11 to disk2, where does it load from?
these experiments are to determine whether I can install windows in the future without having to remove any disks, or whether I have to remove the other disks with windows installs.
I can avoid removing a disk, by backing up the disk to a file, then erasing the disk, then installing say Windows to another disk, then reinstating the erased disk. which is a bit of a performance, and will take several hours even with the 990Pro M.2 drives. I enquired on a Linux Mint forum for a trick way to decompress and copy in 1 step, which could save hours of time!
basically you can install any way you want without removing any drives other than CDFS flash drives, PROVIDED you backup and erase any disks with the same OS genre IF you want a loader per disk, rather than the dubious idea of unified loaders. and then reinstate the disk from the backup.
basically I didnt need to remove the graphics card, and didnt need to remove any M.2 drives!
All PCI-E slots have plastic clips, regardless the manufacturer. And if you brute force it, it will break off. After all, PCs are considered as delicate electronics.
the problem is the ACE has the lever inaccessible if you install the Be Quiet!
so is a case of not having been thought about properly and is a geometrical gaffe.
its like building a house without any doors, where you have to enter the house by the chimney.
or a house with a door from room1 to room2, and room2 to room3, and room3 to room4, and room4 to room1, but no doors to anywhere else, where you cannot get into any of the rooms.
the fact that everyone does something is no defence for that something, if everyone steals that doesnt justify stealing! you need to do what is right, not what is popular!
using plastic on equipment that gets hot is a bad idea, as plastic will gradually denature with time, even without heat! ever noticed how the plastic bags become bad with time if left in the open. if you keep them in another plastic bag they will keep in good condition, but the outer plastic bag will deteriorate.
eg in recent years I tried to remove a radiator tap from a radiator system installed in 1978, and the plastic cap crumbled! guess why? decades of hot pipework!
that looks like a good feature, they must have discovered this problem of inaccessible latches.
I honestly would prefer something well designed rather than something fast.
with my Amiga1200, I bought 2 SCSI2 interfaces, a slower one via PCMCIA called SquirrelSCSI by a british firm, and a much faster one via a lower level interface by german firm Blizzard, the BlizzardSCSI.
the german one much faster. but I then bought a SCSI3 CDRW drive by Yamaha, and only the BlizzardSCSI worked. its because the british one didnt assume anything about SCSI command sizes, whereas the german one assumed the SCSI2 command sizes. net effect is the british one worked perfectly with SCSI-3 from the future! slower but better designed, the german one didnt work at all with SCSI3.
I am not sure if you are aware of this, but the Enthoo Pro tower case has a cover over the PSU, so all power cables emerge from the right, and go over the edge where the sata cables are, and it is major work to get past the jungle of cables to the sockets,
are you aware that the Enthoo Pro has 2 cages of in total 6 3.5" drives, which will be SATA, then it has an SSD bracket at the side panel under the mobo, and 2 SSD brackets above the mobo,
the ACE itself has a jungle of sockets along the right edge of the mobo,
there is an unconnected PCIe cable in the photo which is for the disconnected graphics card
here is a photo of my 2010 PC, where I can easily descend from above to the SATA sockets:
do you honestly think that the Enthoo Pro has a ton of bays and the Ace a ton of sockets eg 4 x M.2, plus I think 2 further ones with the Xpander, 3 PCIe, a lot of USB3 sockets, USB C sockets, just for decoration?
Few people ever use more than 1-2 SATA cables, if that many. Cables are cheap. MSi provided 4, which is 2 too many. You may be right that 6 ports deserves 6 cables, but in practise it's a waste.
I have 2 WD Blue 2T drives, a Pioneer SATA optical drive, a Samsung 500GB SSD, and also when backing up the 2010 system drive SSD, that was another SATA drive. I easily have 10 SATA drives not connected, many housed in USB enclosures.
cables may be cheap, but it is a lottery if they are good quality, mobo supplied ones have quality assurance.
the fact they are cheap and light is all the more reason to supply them. what costs you 2 quid might just cost MSI 50p, and it is good psychology when the customer receives a ton of extras for free.
the fact they create 6 ports, means they believe enough people use 6 ports to justify that utilisation of the limited mobo area. this is an EATX mobo, I buy the biggest size available as I want more of all sockets.
if I just wanted 1 SATA cable or 0, I would buy a laptop or some small format toy system.
the problem is the OS is the foundation of the computer, so if it isnt sound, it is major upheaval to correct.
my experiments have shown that you dont need to remove any internal drives at all to install Windows any way you want, but you need to go via optical install disks, and remove all CDFS flash drives. you'd need to backup then erase some disks to ensure boot loaders per disk, and then restore such disks.
had I known this, the latch of the graphics PCI socket would still be intact!
What is true is that specific problems should be in their own thread instead of one can of worms containing other cans of worms (though it may be for the best...)
provided a problem is hardware related and the comment is self contained, it will eventually appear on Google searches, which then brings people to the forum. eg someone looking on Google for the macrium software might arrive at the moderator's earlier comments. eg I found a lot of useful forums from Google searches on something which then led to a specific comment in a specific forum.
but eg if we talked here about music, that would bring people to the wrong forum!
thus if you express a fact about hardware in a self contained way it can benefit the forum via Google.
a lot of forum stuff is arrived at long after it was discussed and via Google or forum supplied searches.
with any website, the more things talked about, the more people you draw via Google.
if you talk about a wealth of topics, you become a Google magnet.
No. It actually has 4x M.2 drives on MoBo.
One just above 1st PCI-E x16 slot and 2nd, 3rd and 4th just below 1st PCI-E x16 slot.
1st and 2nd M.2 slots are PCI-E 5.0 x4 and other two are PCI-E 4.0 x4. So, overall 2x M.2 slots less since it doesn't include the M.2 add-in card, as MSI MoBo does.
With 0 cable management and ratsnest of cables (like in your 2010 PC), no wonder why you struggle with cable routing.
I see from your image that you haven't used the space behind MoBo tray AT ALL, to route the cables. E.g those rubber grommets around the MoBo edge - they are there for a reason.
I am not sure if you are aware of this, but the Enthoo Pro tower case has a cover over the PSU, so all power cables emerge from the right, and go over the edge where the sata cables are, and it is major work to get past the jungle of cables to the sockets,
Sorry, but No. Being lazy is not an excuse why not to do proper cable management.
Proper cable management can be done just fine. Here are pics with Phanteks Enthoo Pro with proper cable management:
Behind MoBo tray:
Cable management with PSU cover in place:
Just look how easy it is to access SATA ports on MoBo. With proper cable management done, there is no ratsnest of cables in the way, thus making the claim of: "bad design of SATA ports at 90 degrees", invalid.
As others have said, if you disregard helpful advice and do it in your own way, you'll have harder time.
Same goes with cable management. Ratsnest of cables = frustration in locating correct sockets. But if cable management would be done properly and cleanly, there wouldn't be any issue to locate and access the correct sockets.
So, i advise you to route as many cables behind MoBo tray as you can. No more excuses.
Heck, i'll even share mine (not that i'm proud of what's behind my MoBo tray, but for me, it is good enough );
Top row: how all three builds look from the window side.
Bottom row: how all three builds look behind MoBo tray.
Took me ~3h per PC, to route the cables as they are. Then again, i took my time and made it properly.
now the reason it is tricky I think is because those thumbnail drives are USB AND are CD filing system, AND arent optical disks. this completely wrongfoots both the mobo and the installer software,
Wrong. The reason all drives should be removed is Microsofts silly installation procedure which will stick volumes on drives other than the intended target drive.
This can mess with user's other drives, other OS installs on those drives, or even Microsoft's own older OSs on them.
Since i don't know how long, Microsoft Windows has always been designed to act as if it was the only OS in the computers and as if computers only exist for one OS. This is not right or wrong, it's just their way.
Anyone wishing to multi-boot must work around Windows limitations/restrictions.
but if you go via optical disks, you will have a much better experience, which is maybe why my optical based attitude diverges beyond all recognition from most people here who are thumbdrive zealots!
Maybe it's all you know.
But files are files. How they are read and copied matters very little. CD/DVD media and USB media both can suffer from issues. You could have focused on USB solutions and found one.
One is not better than the other.
You are familiar with the expression "A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse". I get the feeling that no matter what i write to you, it is completely ignored in your reply.
It's fine you don't owe me to read or understand, or try to, and certainly not to agree. But i am wasting my time.
You do what you want. There are fun and interesting conversations to have, but for me this isn't one of them.
I see from your image that you haven't used the space behind MoBo tray AT ALL, to route the cables. E.g those rubber grommets around the MoBo edge - they are there for a reason.
You have spent a lot of time on fruitles experiments, and sometimes reckless ones. You haven't read the documentation, nor asked for advice on what to do about this.
Probably never got round to it, but you could have had cables sorted out weeks or months ago. Instead you went in a different direction.
Follow the signs, follow the advice and obey the warnings. Like driving in traffic. It can be simple.
anyway, the reason people find multi OS installs tricky is they go via thumbdrive installs, these are a total nightmare, where you have to remove all drives except the installer thumbdrive and the target unformatted disk.
now the reason it is tricky I think is because those thumbnail drives are USB AND are CD filing system, AND arent optical disks. this completely wrongfoots both the mobo and the installer software, and ultimately is a widespread bug of these systems, and only works if you force it to work by removing everything,
The reasons for disconnecting all other drives during an OS install are twofold:
1. To prevent WIndows from putting the small boot partition on one of the other drives. This can make things messy later. Especially if attempting a dualboot config.
2. To ensure that you are installing on the actual physical dive you want. We've seen multiple instances where someone clicked the wrong location during the install, wiping out everything that used to be on that drive. This is easier than you may think, especially if there are multiple drive of the same capacity (ex. 1TB)
1. To prevent WIndows from putting the small boot partition on one of the other drives. This can make things messy later. Especially if attempting a dualboot config.
Sometimes, Win likes to put the boot manager onto different drive compared where the OS is installed. And as long as all drives are kept within system, Win boots up just fine. But when the drive where boot manager is located, is removed, the Win will not boot.
There have been countless such cases where person has two (or more) drives, installs Win onto C:\ drive but Win puts the boot manager onto data drive (e.g D:\ ). And once user removes the data drive, they can not boot to OS anymore, despite OS drive still being inside the PC.
first a progress report, I now have an MO for installing multiple OSes on multiple disks for Windows, with boot loaders per disk, which should work for Linux also, but I have focussed on the windows side of the problem, as the plan is to only put Linux as the last install on a disk.
I have gotten on one disk: 621GB win10 ; 621GB win11 ; 621GB unallocated
and on the 2nd disk: 310.5GB win10 ; 310.5GB win 11; 2 x 621GB unallocated.
with each of the 4 OSes on the same disk as its bootloader, and I can do this on any amount of further disks.
where the plan is to put Linux Mint as the 3rd OS on that 2nd disk, as those win10 + win11 installs are scratch installs to test out riskier things.
I spent a lot of time trying to decide what sizes to give to each install, the idea with the first disk is that in the future that might be win10 ; win11 ; win12 ; with all 3 equal storage, except the leftmost one has some space deducted by the installer for administrative partitions.
all earlier multi OS disks are reformatted. so now it is 4 licenses used up. 4 unused, and I will probably buy at least a further 4 licenses.
each disk has its own boot loader, which in both cases will show win10 + win11 as the 2 options, where the other disk is invisible to it.
I am now as a 2nd phase doing the fuller install on the 621GB win10. and will focus on getting that complete with all the software I normally use before any further steps on the other 3 installs. have done the full driver install just for that install, and MSI Center installs are happening as I write this, it is taking forever on the "MSI Center" install which is 615.5MB. I know it hasnt frozen up even though it has been saying 30% for literally half an hour, because if I look at properties for C:\ every few minutes the bytesize jumps another amount.
in order to get these multi OS installs, where I can install any amount of Windows 10 + 11 on any amount of disks, where each install has a loader on its own disk, AND I dont need to remove any disks at all EXCEPT flashdrives with CDFS, which here are two: the MSI driver thumbdrive and the win10 installer thumbdrive.
ALSO I dont need to erase each disk and I 100% understand how Windows arranges boot loaders:
if a boot loader is around, Windows will use that one even if on another disk
if no boot loader, Windows will install one on the current disk, but you need to start with an empty disk, and install successive Windows left to right. 64 bit windows wont install on a data only disk, unless you know too much.
but if no boot loaders around, and you only installed Windows OSes and left to right on that disk, then with the first leftmost install, Windows arranges a boot loader within the zone of the first OS, at least if that is on the left, I havent tried putting the first one elsewhere.
now to avoid backing up then erasing other disks with bootloaders then to install Windows, then to reinstate the erased windows, I first tried just removing the boot flag on Linux Mint's GParted, but when I rebooted, Windows booted, so that idea failed. but the next idea worked a treat, and what I do is to do a sector backup of the leftmost system partition of any disk with a bootloader, called "EFI system partition" by GParted, and photograph the GParted info on that disk, especially the name and flags. then I delete that one partition, then I create a new partition in the same space and give it the NTFS filesystem. nothing else done.
if I reboot now, that bootloader is gone, and if done for all boot loader disks, Windows will now create a new bootloader on the same disk for the first install. I use this MO for all the installs. and this is a super elite MO, works every time.
after the Windows OS is installed with its en suite boot loader, and maybe further Windows OSes on that disk, I now reboot to Linux Mint installer DVD, and I do a sector copy of the backup back to that partition, I then also fix the disk name and flags, although experimenting, Windows ignores these anyway.
so the concealing of each bootloader literally takes 10 seconds with these M.2 drives, no more removing of internal drives!
Now there are various obstructions en route, one is that after installing a new version of Windows 10 or 11, it will have fast startup, and now on Linux Mint you wont be able to backup the aforementioned partition to NTFS disks. so there is some extra runaround, eg with each installation of Windows 10 or 11, to immediately switch off fast startup, as fast startup causes all NTFS disks to be read only on Mint.
Win 11 has its own obstructions, I get an error message that my computer doesnt meet the minimum requirements for win 11, and the install fails. this one is a spurious error message and is caused by the secure boot being off in the UEFI, so the remedy is to then load UEFI optimised defaults, then reconfigure each of the 7 fans to be quiet, this ensures the secure settings are what the 11 install wants, and now the installer breezes through flawlessly, and you get the boot loader of that disk.
now after the win 11 install is complete, the Linux Mint DVD fails to load with a message "verification failed, 0x1a security violation", removing the secure options in the UEFI fixes this. so with each win11 install, where I did 2, you have to first enable secure installs, then afterwards disable secure installs to return to Linux. without Linux my MO cannot be done.
but having now done 4 installs, flawlessly, I have the MO to perfection.
with notes on each obstruction and the remedy thereof.
I can literally create 5 disks with 5 windows installs on each, where each uses the bootloader of its disk, without removing any disks other than CDFS thumbdrives, eg I had all 3 M.2 disks present for all this, and also a 500GB Samsung SSD, and a 57.8GB non CDFS thumbdrive, no problem at all,
where the only run around is I have to temporarily obliterate the leftmost system partition of the pre-existing bootloader disks, then after the install, I need to reinstate those, this does need notes as the MO is spread out in time and logic and without notes you will forget a step. and it does require a well thought out protocol, eg to rename the replaced partition with a reminder name, and to name the backup in a reminding way.
Now en route, where it literally has taken all day to both learn and progress, with rebooting after rebooting after rebooting,
I found some bugs with the ACE mobo UEFI. it doesnt show the 2T drive at M2_3. but I installed Windows 10 then 11 to that disk when empty and it shows that bootloader as M2_2, but M2_2 is a 4T data disk M.2. Now I tested whether it had set up a bootloader at the 4T, but with the 4T removed, it boots just fine, and now the 2T does appear in the UEF, that is the first proper bug I have found with the MSI ACE mobo.
No. It actually has 4x M.2 drives on MoBo. One just above 1st PCI-E x16 slot and 2nd, 3rd and 4th just below 1st PCI-E x16 slot.
1st and 2nd M.2 slots are PCI-E 5.0 x4 and other two are PCI-E 4.0 x4. So, overall 2x M.2 slots less since it doesn't include the M.2 add-in card, as MSI MoBo does.
4 is probably sufficient. I have reinstalled the graphics card, I tried re-establishing the broken latch, and it holds when it is locked. when unlocked it detaches completely. Potentially an identical latch from the other 2 PCIe sockets could be borrowed, I havent tried this as I could end up with 2 broken latches!
with the thermal grease, is this standardised? or do I need a specific one for this configuration? I think it was the video of the guy with the ACE where he literally had something like a tube of toothpaste of thermal grease!
I have an MO now described above to do anything at all with bootloaders and multi installs without needing to remove any drives.
the naysayers about what I am doing are so very wrong!
I will retry unigine again once the MSI downloads have finished, to see if the graphics card is working properly. it is working alright for the normal monitor usage via the DP to DP 16K cable.
With 0 cable management and ratsnest of cables (like in your 2010 PC), no wonder why you struggle with cable routing.
I see from your image that you haven't used the space behind MoBo tray AT ALL, to route the cables. E.g those rubber grommets around the MoBo edge - they are there for a reason.
that PSU is considerably smaller than my one, my one goes way more to the right, leaving much less leeway for the cables at the right. also the cables of the Seasonic are much fatter bundles of cables, than the above which look like ribbon cables.
with my PSU, all the necessary cables form a big jungle at the right of the PSU, and that right edge is much further to the right in the case,
this ACE mobo has a lot of power sockets along the right and top edge, now maybe you can go round the back of the case,
that isnt the same case as my Enthoo pro, my one has 2 SSD caddies on the right of the picture, and a 3rd SSD caddy on the other side of the mobo, but they only supplied 2 caddies!
Just look how easy it is to access SATA ports on MoBo. With proper cable management done, there is no ratsnest of cables in the way, thus making the claim of: "bad design of SATA ports at 90 degrees", invalid.
I am not convinced, my mobo is an EATX, and the rightwards pointing SATA sockets are much further to the right than in your photo,
the mobo in your photos looks like a smaller form factor, where you have more space at the top and at the right.
accessing from above is much easier than from the side
a lot of cables go to a lot of places along the right edge of the ACE, go study the diagram of the ACE mobo, and if you send them around the other side of the mobo, you have the problem that they have to loop back above the mobo to reach the sockets.
your ideas above will help, but I dont think they will fix all the problems, ALL the cables in my photo of the ACE are necessary, they have to get there somehow, and there isnt much leeway on the other side of the mobo, as there is already a fest of cables there factory installed. now some of those can probably be junked, but I already have SATA daisy chain power cables there, and SATA data cables there.
I am not disregarding advice! I have followed a ton of advice, and also gotten into jeopardy thereby. eg you advised USB C video cables, where I put a lot of money on these, and in fact the graphics card doesnt use USB C cables!
the USB C cables are just a temporary arrangement until a graphics card is in place.
also with this specific monitor, HDMI is no use, it creates a blurry image even from the graphics card, and the only option is DP to DP cables, this is advice I wasnt given in the earlier topic.
you were telling me that only a certain kind of USB 3 C cable can handle the data rates, when in fact the truth is the only option here is DP to DP.
you never told me that graphics cards dont use USB 3 C, until I pointed this out about my graphics card, when you said matter of fact no graphics cards have USB C, as if!
Same goes with cable management. Ratsnest of cables = frustration in locating correct sockets. But if cable management would be done properly and cleanly, there wouldn't be any issue to locate and access the correct sockets.
So, i advise you to route as many cables behind MoBo tray as you can. No more excuses.
Wrong. The reason all drives should be removed is Microsofts silly installation procedure which will stick volumes on drives other than the intended target drive.
This can mess with user's other drives, other OS installs on those drives, or even Microsoft's own older OSs on them.
the premise of your comment is wrong! I can and have installed multiple installs to multiple disks without having to remove any hard drive,
the only thing removed is the CDFS thumbdrives,
your comments only apply if you have an inept MO, or more likely you dont have an MO, and just blindly trust technology eg installers, eg an installer will have an automatic install, "recommended",
you need an intricate MO to install OSes, as it is very metalevel, and fraught with danger as you could obliterate 5 years of work with a click of the mouse!
I have developed super elite MO which will install any amount of Windows OSes to any amount of drives without needing to remove any, with all installs in the right place and with bootloaders on the same disks, cannot go wrong.
and I perfected this MO today, I didnt have it yesterday!
but there is an IQ barrier, and I can imagine that the young people of today will blunder magnificently with such things! because they cannot tie their shoelaces without an app and an instagram snapchat account and some influencers on ketamine.
I do everything old school, making notes with a bic pen on pieces of A4 paper god forbid! I am not some thicko who clicks install and hopes for the best, or who trusts automatic installs.
I survey each disk's partition structure, carefully, I print out the Windows depiction of all the disks.
and eg where I had two identical empty 2T Samsung 990 Pros M.2 drives, I wanted the main installs on the accessible one, and there was danger of confusing the two.
but with careful study of both Linux and Windows I found that both systems enumerate them in this order if present: M2_1, M2_2, M2_3, M2_4
so I knew for sure that the accessible one would be last of the 2Ts.
if I were to use a different mobo, I would reverify if that same MO is used,
now if I had also a WD Blue 2T attached, there are 2 in the cages but they are detached, these have IDENTICAL bytesize to the 990 Pros. so I would need some further work to disambiguate.
what I did do when installing to the outermost empty M.2 was to put a temporary marker partition on the inaccessible one, called something like M2_3_marker
this is "belts and braces", ie to wear a belt and braces, so if the belt fails the braces hold up the trousers, and if the braces fail, the belt holds up the trousers!
ie I dont leave anything to chance, I dont take prisoners!
Maybe it's all you know.
But files are files. How they are read and copied matters very little. CD/DVD media and USB media both can suffer from issues. You could have focused on USB solutions and found one.
One is not better than the other.
the problem is metalevel, that the mobo struggles to get to the thumbdrive, if it reaches the files, then yes files are files, but the problem is the mobo doesnt even reach the thumbdrive unless you remove all the other drives.
but today I installed 4 OSes to 2 M.2 drives, with the following drives attached:
4T data only M.2 drive, Samsung 990 Pro
2T empty M.2 drive, Samsung 990 Pro, at one point I put a marker partition to be 100% sure I didnt mistake the other identical drive for it,
2T identical empty M.2 drive,
500GB Samsung SSD
57.8GB Sandisk thumbdrive
so lets count, that is 5 drives attached, and with surgical precision each OS to its intended place, and each bootloader at the correct place,
but the MO I use is beyond the scope of most people, because it is too involved and intricate. I hate to brag, but you leave me with no option!
2 drives removed and classed as toxic: MSI driver install disk, and win 10 installer thumbdisk.
not at all fruitless, I now have an MO to install any amount of Windows to any amount of drives, without having to remove any disks and without having to remove the graphics card. very fruitful experiments!
I now have windows 10 + 11 installs sussed. I did follow USAFRets advice, which was excellent advice, that if things go to pot, remove absolutely everything. following that advice was the breakthrough moment, as that enabled me to isolate where the fault was, and this was the MSI driver thumbdrive.
The reasons for disconnecting all other drives during an OS install are twofold:
1. To prevent WIndows from putting the small boot partition on one of the other drives. This can make things messy later. Especially if attempting a dualboot config.
your idea works, but I wanted to refine your MO to determine what doesnt need to be removed, because I really dont like detaching and reattaching expensive hardware, the M.2 contacts are quite dainty, and they will wear out eventually. I had a dashcam simm card wear out from continually moving it to a card reader to move and delete the vids.
you do need to select custom installs only both with Windows and Linux, if you go automatic, then all hell can break loose.
with a custom install, both Windows and Linux installers will only install to where you select, this does mean you need to draw a diagram of the target disk, and to look for landmarks that guarantee it isnt one of your other drives!
you mustnt just select on the desktop say a 500GB zone to install Windows to, and then on the install jump in at the first 500GB you notice.
instead you need to note the lay of the land, what are the partition sizes to the left of the target zone, what are those to the right, selecting out some facts that dont happen to any other connected disk.
before I install, I go through all the disks visible on the installer, and see if I can identify unambiguously EVERY disk, I tend to subdivide disks into partitions. if you are someone who doesnt subdivide disks, then there is bigger danger as various disks have identical size.
this is where protocols are important. its not just what you do that matters, but also what you have done and will do, another person doing the same stuff as you, but who did different stuff earlier on will have a totally different chance of success. or if they do different stuff later. this is protocols. eg in England if you drive on the left, great. but in Germany drive on the left, and big trouble!
an expert breezes through because they follow more advanced protocols.
checking my photos just now, the installer gives 2 numbers for each partition, the size, and how much free, eg from a photo:
Drive 2 Partition 5 size 310.5GB, free space 310.5GB
I think that photo is where I have just created the target partition to install the scratch version of win10 or win11, and thus is M2_3, and a 2T Samsung 990 Pro. I can tell all that just from that info! this is how attuned I am to what I do.
the Windows installer in fact refuses to utilise partitions which have stuff on them, now possibly XP's installer would delete any partition, and I think the Linux Mint also does. but they have made the Windows installer safer, this was frustrating as I had to abandon one install and delete the partitions from either Mint or win10, I forget which as I have done so many things today.
I had carefully set up a partition for Windows to install to, but no chance!
I think 64 bit Windows 10 and 11 wont install to a disk unless your first partition was a windows 10 or 11 or Linux install. I havent fully tested this, but I think further back in time I tried with the 4T drive deleting all partitions, then creating one, then trying to install Windows 10 or 11 to the remaining space and it point blank refused. Now with 32 bit Windows, I think you could install to any of the 4 top level partitions (non logical ones).
you do need to select from a desktop a target zone on a target disk for your OS install, either from the Windows desktop or if for a brand new machine, from the Linux try without installing desktop.
you then need sufficient landmarks, eg sizes, unused sizes, sequences of these, to unambiguously locate your target zone.
what I am doing is no different from what a surgeon does, they have to be 200% sure, and the people in an operating theatre follow very strict MO, similarly with pilots, the co pilot will have a checklist, which he reads out item by item, and the pilot will check each item and then say check, also the pilot and copilot are always given totally different meals, in case of food poisoning.
with an MOT also, they have to check a lot of things.
although I may be courting danger, I am actually one of the most cautious people there is, I scrutinise in great detail to determine where the danger is, and then I act freely in the safe zone. I am as cautious as a surgeon or pilot. its like with the roads, I am super cautious, I keep twice the advised distance from the next vehicle, I always take an umbrella even if there isnt a cloud in the sky. I never go above the speed limit with the satnav version of the speed.
We've seen multiple instances where someone clicked the wrong location during the install, wiping out everything that used to be on that drive. This is easier than you may think, especially if there are multiple drive of the same capacity (ex. 1TB)
yes, identical drives is a big problem. I installed the 2 multiple OSes to 2 identical empty drives, once there is stuff on the drives, the configuration of the stuff is usually sufficient to identify. so the bigger problem was dealing with the first empty drive. but as I suspected, both Windows and Linux list these in this order: M2_1, M2_2, M2_3, M2_4,
if 2 zones are indistinguishable, you should create an identifying marker, eg put a partition of 1234MB in the target zone. and verify there arent any other 1234MB partitions, eg an earlier such marker!
I think the problem is the modern era people are too reliant on technology, and with AI it will become a lot worse, could lead to the end of this civilisation. but I was a kid in the 1970s, and I grew up without technology, also I did maths which is all about paper + pen, where you have to make everything happen manually with pen and paper.
I saw a digital watch for the first time aged 11, and got my first computer aged 22, I got my first television aged approx 31, and most days I dont watch tv.
in 1973 to 1976, we lived in a remote place in Africa, with no tv, no phone, no postal system, no music, no shops, no buses, no taxis, no nothing, just a street of houses and wild land. if I wanted music I had to whistle or sing the few songs we were taught at school! we had running water, electricity and a car, but no other technology.
the irony is that because I have grown up without technology, I can handle technology much better than the main population, not as well as Aeacus, but most other people!
the problem is getting the damned flashdrive to run, at least with this ACE mobo, the damned thing wont run. once it runs, any other CDFS in the system will cause the Windows installer to fail with a spurious error.
there are miscellaneous other probs, eg the win11 installer will fail with spurious error unless you have secure boot,
this is entirely why I have been experimenting so intensely, its to calibrate what does and what doesnt work. I am not doing this for fun, but because I know from bitter experience, that you can get into jeopardy with OS installs and repairs. and I have calibrated the dangers of 64 bit win10 + win11 + Mint big time, eg I am breezing through what everyone in this forum is alleging to be impossible and inadvisable! but I had to go through hell to learn how to do that. eg Windows 10 + 11 fast boot is one of the many obscure gremlins, as it causes Linux to be unable to write to NTFS drives, which is a Linux versus Windows conflict.
the target zone is not a problem if you mistrust the technology, and recognise enough markers to know 200% sure you have the right zone.
getting the boot loader on the right disk is where you need elite MO and is probably beyond the scope of 99% of people, so I understand why you probably have to give the advice of remove everything other than installer + target, and that advice enabled me to get over the river.
for bootloader control, you need to be Linux shell savvy, it cant be done with a GUI, and even with the shell, you need to check and double check that you are selecting the right zone, and also keep meticulous notes as to where you are in the process.
and that nvme2n1p1 needs to be letter perfect, if you got any of the latter characters wrong, could be big trouble. so I check and double check and triple check before I press return.
I personally take photos of the Linux screen at certain riskier points, I can upload some,
protocols and MO are all important, as also is caution,
I dont know about other countries, but in England people are highly incautious, but as someone who specialised originally in pure maths, you'll fail the exam if you arent very cautious. exceptional cases are where the trouble is with maths.
when I install Windows, I opt out of all the options, and I opt out of Cortana, I literally click no to each of many install screens! no no no no no and no again!
but 99% of people will say, yes please, yes please, yes please, and yes please again.
there are 2 kinds of people in this world, dogs and wolves, I am a wolf, namely Aesop's fable of the dog and the wolf.
your comments only apply if you have an inept MO, or more likely you dont have an MO, and just blindly trust technology eg installers, eg an installer will have an automatic install, "recommended",
you need an intricate MO to install OSes, as it is very metalevel, and fraught with danger as you could obliterate 5 years of work with a click of the mouse!
You have summed up stupidity pretty well. Simpler and less risky is preferable to a haphazard, learn on the go "MO", which isn't an MO really.
You are forcing a cube through a round opening. Don't boast.
I'm not going to comment on elite, IQ or metalevel.
with the thermal grease, is this standardised? or do I need a specific one for this configuration? I think it was the video of the guy with the ACE where he literally had something like a tube of toothpaste of thermal grease!
At the bottom of the article is thermal paste comparison.
Thermal paste that i have, is Arctic Cooling MX-4. I have entire syringe (tube) of this thing:
As seen from above image, i bought entire syringe of it, since i didn't know that the small satchel of MX-4 would be included with the MoBo. Ended up using about half of the small satchel, while keeping the tube sealed, for future use.
But for under CPU heatsink, best to get thermal paste that isn't electrically conductive (disregarding liquid metals). Since IF it sweeps out under the CPU heatsink it can short-circuit MoBo. Better not to risk it and use normal thermal paste that has reviewed well.
One of the reasons why i suggested full-tower ATX was to give you more space regarding cable management. Behind MoBo tray, there is enough space to route the cables. And if PSU shroud gets into way, remove it completely. After all, PSU shroud is just for eyecandy. It serves no practical purpose.
Even with default power cables, proper cable management can still be done, despite 24-pin ATX cable being round and fat one.
Left side - default power cables that came with my PSU, black ones.
Right side - custom sleeved CableMod power cables, that i ordered and replaced, red ones.
While you may not be able to reroute the 24-pin ATX cable, since it's too fat, you still should be able to reroute other, thinner power cables. The more cables you can reroute behind MoBo tray - the less cable clutter you'll have and the easier it would be to access the ports on MoBo.
E-ATX is yes, covering the rubber grommets 1/4 way. So, routing SATA data cables behind MoBo tray may not be viable (not enough space). But you can reroute other cables back there. Just need to have a try.
At first, you were going to use iGPU inside CPU and needed display cable to see an image. Since MoBo only has USB type-C with DP built-in, as display output port, i suggested proper cables for you. You can not use DP to DP cable when you don't have dGPU in the system and are only using iGPU.
you never told me that graphics cards dont use USB 3 C, until I pointed this out about my graphics card, when you said matter of fact no graphics cards have USB C, as if!
Since GPU is for video output, it only has video output ports. These include: VGA, DVI, HDMI and DP. Since GPU doesn't output data (e.g files), there is no need for any kind of USB port on GPU.
In a similar sense, dedicated sound card only has audio output ports. It doesn't have USB ports either, nor does it need those.
So, common sense says:
If it is a sound card - it only has audio output ports.
If it is a video card - it only has display output ports.
If it is a USB card - it only has USB ports.
If it is a capture card - it has display/audio input ports.
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