[SOLVED] Newly Built PC boots to BIOS, refuses to boot to SSD

[Nitrousbird]

Motherboard: MSI PRO B660M-A WIFI DDR4
CPU: i5 12400
RAM: G.Skill RipJaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 3600MHz
PSU: Thermaltake Smart BM2 550W 80+ Bronze
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 SPCC Micro ATX
SSD: Samsung 840

Everything new except the SSD, which as Windows 10 on it. Building a new machine for my wife as we lost our home in a large house fire and I was able to save the SSD (rest of her old machine is in poor shape but wasn't burned). SSD looks brand new and reads/writes perfectly on my external hard drive housing, so no evidence of an issue with it.

PC boots directly to BIOS. Seems the XMP profile fine on the ram, no errors on anything, sees all fans, etc. Setup to boot from HD first and USB 2nd. Updated BIOS to latest version. Will book fine to USB but NOT from the SSD. It sees the SSD, sees it is an 840 and the proper capacity. I have tried all 4 SSD ports. It simply won't boot to it. Any ideas?

I'd rather not start from scratch - if I do, I'm buying a Samsung 980 M.2 and putting Win 11 on that like I have on my main rig.

 

[rgd1101]

so the os was install on an old system?

 

[Lutfij]

we lost our home in a large house fire
Sorry to hear about that. I hope you and co are in good order?

You're advised to reinstall the OS if you perform a platform change/upgrade/swap.

 

[Nitrousbird]

we lost our home in a large house fire
Sorry to hear about that. I hope you and co are in good order?

You're advised to reinstall the OS if you perform a platform change/upgrade/swap.

We are fine - got out before smoke really entered the house. But it was a huge fire and lost most of our belongings and a beautiful house. It's just stuff though.

I've done platform changes before swapping over drives without a problem - something special about this platform/

 

[rgd1101]

I've done platform changes before swapping over drives without a problem - something special about this platform/

recent gen or decade old gen?

 

[BFG-9000]

Comet Lake, Rocket Lake and Alder Lake use a different PCH. In general, the main things that prevent booting in the wrong system are either a PCIe controller or disk controller (in the PCH) that's just too different from the one it was originally installed on.

Often the drivers are close enough that it at least boots so the correct drivers can be installed, but you can't expect it to work if the generational gap of the architectures is too wide, or if going from AMD to Intel. If the smelly old system is still working you might be able to install enough drivers on it from there to get it to boot on the new system, but no guarantees on how well that will work.

Since Vista, Microsoft in its infinite wisdom has made it impossible to do a repair install from bootable media in case the system fails to boot--you can only do that from the Windows desktop (in which case you wouldn't need to do it as the system would be working). And repair installs in this way (or build updates) will not necessarily fix all the problems you may encounter with such a transplanted install, which is why a clean reinstall is suggested unless you really enjoy the troubleshooting.

 

[Nitrousbird]

Comet Lake, Rocket Lake and Alder Lake use a different PCH. In general, the main things that prevent booting in the wrong system are either a PCIe controller or disk controller (in the PCH) that's just too different from the one it was originally installed on.

Often the drivers are close enough that it at least boots so the correct drivers can be installed, but you can't expect it to work if the generational gap of the architectures is too wide, or if going from AMD to Intel. If the smelly old system is still working you might be able to install enough drivers on it from there to get it to boot on the new system, but no guarantees on how well that will work.

Since Vista, Microsoft in its infinite wisdom has made it impossible to do a repair install from bootable media in case the system fails to boot--you can only do that from the Windows desktop (in which case you wouldn't need to do it as the system would be working). And repair installs in this way (or build updates) will not necessarily fix all the problems you may encounter with such a transplanted install, which is why a clean reinstall is suggested unless you really enjoy the troubleshooting.

This is the answer I was looking for. Wife was rocking my ancient i7 920 (yes, 12 year old CPU) - it worked fine for her needs, which is basically VDI into her work. I ended up being a 1TB 980 Pro and putting Win11 on that.