[SOLVED] New MSI B450 MAX install (Only 2 internal drives can be used at a time) & Problems with Windows boot

Apr 28, 2020
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I was hoping to get some help with a problem I've had since replacing my old AsRock Z68 Pro3 motherboard with a new MSI board, processor, and memory. Installation went fine, no issues, but after powering on, I had a blank screen with a tiny white rectangle made of a handful of pixels before being able to open the BIOS. Looking at the motherboard itself, I had the red LED light for "GPU" on. I tried moving my GPU to the other PCIe slot, but there was no difference.

Motherboard: MSI Tomahawk B450 MAX
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: G.Skill Tridentz (2 x 8 GB) DDR4
GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 750Ti
Internal Drives: Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SSD (OS installed, previously used/formatted), WD Caviar Black 1 TB (previously used/formatted), WD Black 2 TB (previously used/formatted), WD Black 6 TB (previously used/formatted--possibly in GPT?), WD Blue 6 TB (new, not yet formatted), DVDRW drive (x2)

After some initial trial and error, I was able to get to the BIOS screen with only the SSD connected. After setting boot to run through my SSD that already had Windows 10 on it, I was able to successfully boot to Windows. I then shut down (can't remember if it was system or a hard shut down) and reconnected the cables to the other drives and had the same problem I initially had. Since installing the new motherboard/cpu/ram, I've had trouble getting a reliable shutdown and often have to hold the button down to make it work.

Then, through more trial and error, I found that I could have any combination of two drives hooked up and successfully boot to Windows. However, that doesn't include either of the 6 TB drives. Looking deeper into Google search results, I tried switching from CSM to UEFI, but wasn't able to boot as it didn't recognize any of my drives. All of my non-6TB drives are definitely formatted MBR (except for the WD Blue that is still newly installed).

Is my only answer here to format my SSD (or all HDs?) to GPT? Any other ideas that I've missed here?

Thanks in advance for your help, I really appreciate it!
 
Solution
I was hoping to get some help with a problem I've had since replacing my old AsRock Z68 Pro3 motherboard with a new MSI board, processor, and memory. Installation went fine, no issues, but after powering on, I had a blank screen with a tiny white rectangle made of a handful of pixels before being able to open the BIOS. Looking at the motherboard itself, I had the red LED light for "GPU" on. I tried moving my GPU to the other PCIe slot, but there was no difference.

Motherboard: MSI Tomahawk B450 MAX
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: G.Skill Tridentz (2 x 8 GB) DDR4
GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 750Ti
Internal Drives: Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SSD (OS installed, previously used/formatted), WD Caviar Black 1 TB...

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
I was hoping to get some help with a problem I've had since replacing my old AsRock Z68 Pro3 motherboard with a new MSI board, processor, and memory. Installation went fine, no issues, but after powering on, I had a blank screen with a tiny white rectangle made of a handful of pixels before being able to open the BIOS. Looking at the motherboard itself, I had the red LED light for "GPU" on. I tried moving my GPU to the other PCIe slot, but there was no difference.

Motherboard: MSI Tomahawk B450 MAX
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: G.Skill Tridentz (2 x 8 GB) DDR4
GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 750Ti
Internal Drives: Samsung 860 EVO 500 GB SSD (OS installed, previously used/formatted), WD Caviar Black 1 TB (previously used/formatted), WD Black 2 TB (previously used/formatted), WD Black 6 TB (previously used/formatted--possibly in GPT?), WD Blue 6 TB (new, not yet formatted), DVDRW drive (x2)

After some initial trial and error, I was able to get to the BIOS screen with only the SSD connected. After setting boot to run through my SSD that already had Windows 10 on it, I was able to successfully boot to Windows. I then shut down (can't remember if it was system or a hard shut down) and reconnected the cables to the other drives and had the same problem I initially had. Since installing the new motherboard/cpu/ram, I've had trouble getting a reliable shutdown and often have to hold the button down to make it work.

Then, through more trial and error, I found that I could have any combination of two drives hooked up and successfully boot to Windows. However, that doesn't include either of the 6 TB drives. Looking deeper into Google search results, I tried switching from CSM to UEFI, but wasn't able to boot as it didn't recognize any of my drives. All of my non-6TB drives are definitely formatted MBR (except for the WD Blue that is still newly installed).

Is my only answer here to format my SSD (or all HDs?) to GPT? Any other ideas that I've missed here?

Thanks in advance for your help, I really appreciate it!
You switched motherboards. You REALLY need to do a clean OS install. Reusing an old install can have any number of unfixable problems.
 
Solution
Apr 28, 2020
3
0
10
I'm setting up the install disk right now. Does it matter if I'm formatting my 500 GB SSD in GPT or MBR? Should I be running in UEFI or CSM? Does it matter?

Thanks for the help!
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator
I'm setting up the install disk right now. Does it matter if I'm formatting my 500 GB SSD in GPT or MBR? Should I be running in UEFI or CSM? Does it matter?

Thanks for the help!
Generally you want UEFI. I would just let the installer format your SSD. When you do the install have ONLY the SSD connected. That will prevent the installer from getting confused
Here is Tom's tutorial on doing a clean install -- https://www.tomshardware.com/news/how-to-do-clean-installation-windows-10,36160.html
 

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