Stuck at EFI Shell PLEASE HELP!

[Ncmandolfo]

I am at a loss. I swear I have looked at over a hundred threads with no hope of solving my problem. This same thing has happened to me about a month ago when my HHD failed on me. Now I am looking at the same stupid screen on start up after I unplugged and re-plugged my HDD the other night ; First line reads "EFI Shell version 2.31 [4.651] - Current running mode 1.1.2" and below this I get a message "map: cannot find required map" and to press ESC before the time is up to skip startup.nsh.
I have tried just about everything I can think of or have read to do, including, resetting the CMOS MULTIPLE TIMES, Changing what DIMM slots my two RAM cards are in and even just using one (even though I am fairly certain this is a problem with the HDD), changing the sata cables and putting them in different ports on my motherboard.
To really put the cherry on top, my keyboard isn't working in this EFI Shell screen, meaning I CANNOT enter the BIOS by typing "exit" even after I have tried unplugging and re-plugging my wired keyboard.
Please help, I cant think of anything else to do, and REALLY don't want to re-download and try to get all of my games/data back. I can clearly hear my HDD spinning, so I'm not sure what could be going wrong....
PS. if you haven't already guessed I am running an MSI motherboard, a 970A-G43 to be exact.
Thanks for the help guys.

 

[Dee Kay]

Here is another post and how they fixed it. Hopefully it will work for you. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2305241/fixed-stuck-efi-shell-working-boot-return-bios-msi-read-reply-fix.html

 

[Ncmandolfo]

Thanks for the reply, I read over the tread and tried what worked for him. Pushed the button on the side of my sapphire 280X; little blue light is shining bright, but still same start screen :/ I don't understand what could be going wrong, but in this screen my keyboard isn't working at all, LED's wont even light up, and my mouse's LED's are shining, but the actual red optical light is off. I get this message with or without my HDD in....so I thought I could have had another HDD fail on me, but it seems this isn't the case. I plugged my HDD into my other build "the family computer" and it recognizes it, and can read everthing on it. Now I am 100% clueless.... if anyone could help me I'd appreciate it.

 

[Dee Kay]

Did you try disconnecting the kb and then reconnecting it again to a different port while in BIOS? Have you tried a ps2 kb just to see if it would work? Can you try changing to legacy from UEFI just to see if it makes a difference? Just throwing ideas out to see if one of them may actually allow you to get out of the EFI shell.

 

[Ncmandolfo]

Did you try disconnecting the kb and then reconnecting it again to a different port while in BIOS? Have you tried a ps2 kb just to see if it would work? Can you try changing to legacy from UEFI just to see if it makes a difference? Just throwing ideas out to see if one of them may actually allow you to get out of the EFI shell.

I have tried 3 different sata cables, so that can't be the problem. And I would try recconecting it while in BIOS if i could actualy get there XD keyboard doesn't work while in EFI Shell....Damn this totally sucks. I'm going to back up my data on my other computer first, then try to reinstall windows to see if it will even recognize my HDD. If not the im not sure what i will do. I'll keep the thread updated if anything happens. fingers crossed on this one.

 

[Dee Kay]

Did you try disconnecting the kb and then reconnecting it again to a different port while in BIOS? Have you tried a ps2 kb just to see if it would work? Can you try changing to legacy from UEFI just to see if it makes a difference? Just throwing ideas out to see if one of them may actually allow you to get out of the EFI shell.

I have tried 3 different sata cables, so that can't be the problem. And I would try recconecting it while in BIOS if i could actualy get there XD keyboard doesn't work while in EFI Shell....Damn this totally sucks. I'm going to back up my data on my other computer first, then try to reinstall windows to see if it will even recognize my HDD. If not the im not sure what i will do. I'll keep the thread updated if anything happens. fingers crossed on this one.

Definitely keep us posted if you can find something that helps. Sooner or later others are going to have the same problem so anything that you can find that works will help them too. Good luck.

 

[Ncmandolfo]

Alright....well the more I try the more I feel like there isn't a solution. I plopped in my windows 7 disk thinking it would at least give me an option of what drive to download windows onto. Turns out I was wrong :/ this did absolutely nothing...still hopelessly stuck in EFI Shell. Any amount of help is appreciated.

 

[Dee Kay]

Alright....well the more I try the more I feel like there isn't a solution. I plopped in my windows 7 disk thinking it would at least give me an option of what drive to download windows onto. Turns out I was wrong :/ this did absolutely nothing...still hopelessly stuck in EFI Shell. Any amount of help is appreciated.

I haven't ran across any other post marked as solved with any different information other than the post I linked or ones stating try a PS2 keyboard. You may have to start a ticket with MSI support to see if they can help you out.

 

[Ncmandolfo]

Alright guys I finally figured out! I hope I can help anyone else that is stuck in EFI Shell. So solve this I took out one of my ram sticks, which on start up brings up the screen saying "memory or CPU was changed. press F1 to go to set up, and F2 to use default settings." On this screen my keyboard still didn't work....I have no idea why not. After mashing the F1 key I plugged in an old PS/2 keyboard like you guys recommended. With this keyboard I still could not press F1....I could however press Del on the startup of this screen which took me to BIOS FINALLY! Why the Del key didn't work before the EFI Shell screen but did work before the "CPU or memory changed" screen I have absolutely no idea. After I got to the BIOS it was as simple as changing the 'boot' option from "EFI boot" to "disabled"
Anyways that's how I solved this strange problem, I hope I could help out others! 🙂

 

[Dee Kay]

Glad to hear that you were able to get it fixed and thanks for explaining how you were able to do it. Thanks and good luck for an error free experience.

 

[DDEmali]

@Ncmandolfo, you saved my life! I was getting mad on this weird EFI Shell issue and your solution worked fine for me ! My keyborad still working tho during all the process, so i just had to took out 1 of my ram stick, enter the BIOS and disable UEFI boot. Thank you.

 

[Ncmandolfo]

@Ncmandolfo, you saved my life! I was getting mad on this weird EFI Shell issue and your solution worked fine for me ! My keyborad still working tho during all the process, so i just had to took out 1 of my ram stick, enter the BIOS and disable UEFI boot. Thank you.

You're welcome! Glad I could help someone else 🙂 I was stuck in the stupid EFI Shell for a good 4 days.