Question Why does disabling CSM in my Aorus X570 Elite m/board prevent me from booting the PC?

[MrYossu]

I have an Aorus X570 Elite motherboard, and have Windows 10 installed (full system specs here). I have four monitors (one in front of me, one to my left and two to my right, stacked vertically), and when I boot into the BIOS, it always displays on the lower left one.

I'm thinking of installing Windows 11, but can't at the moment as Secure Boot is disabled.

I looked in the user manual, and it seems that I would need to disable CSM support. I booted into the BIOS, and disabled CSM. That showed the Secure Boot option, which was already enabled.

All seemed fine so I saved and restarted. However, instead of booting into Windows, it went back into the BIOS. Oddly enough, instead of appearing on the lower-left monitor as usual, it showed up on the upper-left one. This didn't bother me too much, other than the fact that the display was upside-down, but I'm mentioning it in case it's relevant.

I tried saving and restarting again, but the same thing happened. I powered down the PC, waiting a few minutes, then powered up again. However, the same thing happened.

I enabled CSM again, restarted, and it booted into Windows as usual.

Anyone any idea why this is happening? According to the manual, I should be able to enable Secure Boot, but I can't do that without disabling CSM, and I can't do that or I get stuck at the BIOS screen.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[MrYossu]

Hmm, just looked in the system information, and it shows Secure Boot as unsupported. That night explain the issue, as this was enabled when I disabled CSM. However, I don't understand why it's unsupported, when the motherboard does support it.

 

[CountMike]

Hmm, just looked in the system information, and it shows Secure Boot as unsupported. That night explain the issue, as this was enabled when I disabled CSM. However, I don't understand why it's unsupported, when the motherboard does support it.

When disabling CSM (legacy BIOS) windows have to be installed in UEFI mode for advanced features to work. TPM and Secure boot are some of those to make it fully compatible with W11. That also means GPT instead of MBR mode for boot/system disk.
That can be done this way
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/w...management/change-an-mbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk

 

[SkyNetRising]

Hmm, just looked in the system information, and it shows Secure Boot as unsupported.
That night explain the issue, as this was enabled when I disabled CSM.
However, I don't understand why it's unsupported, when the motherboard does support it.

That means - windows on your pc is installed in legacy mode.
Disabling CSM - removes ability to boot in legacy mode. That's why you can't boot into windows anymore.

You can convert your system to UEFI compatible with mbr2gpt utility (without loosing data)

https://adaptiva.com/blog/2017/configmgr-geeks-guide-mbr2gpt-exe-tool

Or clean disk and reinstall windows in UEFI mode.

 

[MrYossu]

Thanks to both of you for the replies...

@CountMike According to the link you supplied, this will delete all the partitions on the disk. Won't that delete all my data as well?

@SkyNetRising This looks like a good option, as it leaves my data alone.

I don't want to clean and reinstall, as my plan is to put another drive in the machine, install Win11 on that, while leaving my current disk as it is. That way I can switch between the two, which will make the process much easier. I get a fresh install of Win11 (which is probably cleaner than an upgrade, especially as my PC is behaving erratically), but I keep my old installation active, so I can check settings, etc. When I'm finally convinced that I've copied everything over, and all is good, I can remove my current system disk, and be left with a Win11 machine.

Thanks again.

 

[SkyNetRising]

my plan is to put another drive in the machine, install Win11 on that, while leaving my current disk as it is.

Then do that.
Have only single drive connected, while installing windows or new drive doesn't get made bootable.

 

[MrYossu]

@SkyNetRising I will probably open a new question when I get to that stage, as I'm unsure about the whole dual boot business. Right now I'd like to make sure the PC will take Win11. Once I've got that sorted out, I'll ask here for the best way to install, and dual boot until I'm happy with the new installation.

I'll have to wait until a quiet time to try the conversion. Will let you know how I get on.

Thanks again.

 

[MrYossu]

@SkyNetRising Right, after taking a clone of my drive, I took the plunge and used mbr2gpt to convert it.

This worked, but gave me a message saying that it failed to update reagent.xml, and that I should manually disable and enable WinRE. I now have two and a half questions...

First, do you know what I need to do about that message? I did some searching, but most of the posts I saw were a bit vague. I did see a couple saying that it wasn't actually a problem, but I'd like to check that,

Second, after converting, I booted into the BIOS and disabled CSM. I also checked that Secure Boot was enabled. I then saved my changes and restarted the PC. Thankfully it booted up fine, but when I look in System Information, under "Secure Boot State" it says "Off". Any idea why this would be? I rebooted and double-checked the BIOS, and Secure Boot is definitely enabled. Following a tutorial I found, I also checked that AMD CPU fTPM was enabled.

Small bonus question. After converting and disabling CSM, the Aorus logo, and subsequently the BIOS display come up on my upper-right monitor. As the monitor is upside-down (keeps the stand out of the way), this means that it's hard to read what's on the screen. Until I disabled CSM, the logo and BIOS have always been on the lower-right monitor, which is easier to read. Any idea why this has changed, and if I can get the logo and BIOS display on a monitor that is the right way up?

Thanks again for the help.

 

[MrYossu]

Just one more, then I'm going to bed! Been quite enough for one night.

I found this thread, which seemed pretty clear, so I followed the instructions. When I entered...

reagentc /setreimage /path X:\Recovery\WindowsRE

I got a message saying it was already enabled. Does this mean it's sorted?

Thanks again

 

[SkyNetRising]

First, do you know what I need to do about that message? I did some searching, but most of the posts I saw were a bit vague. I did see a couple saying that it wasn't actually a problem, but I'd like to check that,

Probably - ignore. Unless you care about recovery environment very much.

when I look in System Information, under "Secure Boot State" it says "Off". Any idea why this would be? I rebooted and double-checked the BIOS, and Secure Boot is definitely enabled.

Probably didn't enable secure boot properly.
Did you load default keys for secure boot?

Any idea why this has changed, and if I can get the logo and BIOS display on a monitor that is the right way up?

Flip the monitor to correct orientation?

but gave me a message saying that it failed to update reagent.xml, and that I should manually disable and enable WinRE.
I found this thread, which seemed pretty clear, so I followed the instructions. When I entered...
reagentc /setreimage /path X:\Recovery\WindowsRE
I got a message saying it was already enabled. Does this mean it's sorted?

Then disable and enable recovery image (as asked).

reagentc /disable​

reagentc /enable​

​

Check status with

reagentc /info​

 

[MrYossu]

Will have to check some of these suggestions tomorrow when I start up the PC. Couple of quick questions for now...

Probably didn't enable secure boot properly.
Did you load default keys for secure boot?

No idea what you mean by that. Please can you explain? All I did was disable CSM, and then when I went to the section that had the settings for Secure Boot, checked that it was already enabled. I didn't see anything about default keys.

Flip the monitor to correct orientation?

Problem is that in normal (ie Windows) usage, I want it flipped. There are two monitors mounted one above the other on a stand, and in order to minimise the space between the two screens, I mounted the top one upside down, so the stand part of the casing wasn't between the two. That meant I had to flip the orientation.

That's been fine until now, as the BIOS has always shown up on the lower of these two. Since I disabled CSM, it shows up on the upper one, which makes it hard to read. I don't really want to have to flip the orientation just to see the BIOS. I'd prefer it if the BIOS would display on the lower monitor like it always did.

Any idea how to achieve that?

Thanks again for all the help. I'll check out the other points tomorrow.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Please can you explain? All I did was disable CSM, and then when I went to the section that had the settings for Secure Boot, checked that it was already enabled. I didn't see anything about default keys.

Boot into BIOS.
Check Boot\Secure Boot section,
Enroll platform keys.

Show screenshot from BIOS, if you can't figure it out.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[MrYossu]

@SkyNetRising OK, I just fired up the PC into BIOS. Under the Boot section, the Secure Boot Mode was set to Standard.

If I double-click that, I can change it to Custom. When I do that, it enables an option that says Restore Factory Keys (didn't notice it before as it was disabled and I didn't know it was related to Secure Boot).

Was that what you meant? I want to check before trying it.

Thanks again.

 

[MrYossu]

@SkyNetRising Ah, just found this thread, which answered my question. System Information now shows Secure Boot as Yes 👍

I guess my only question now is, can I persude the BIOS display to show up on a different monitor, rather than the one that's flipped?

Thanks yet again, I really appreciate all the help.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I guess my only question now is, can I persude the BIOS display to show up on a different monitor, rather than the one that's flipped?

Switch connections for your monitors?

 

[MrYossu]

Switch connections for your monitors?

Tried that, didn't make any difference.

Thanks anyway, any other ideas?

 

[MrYossu]

@SkyNetRising just tried again, switching with another monitor, and it worked fine.

Thanks again for all the help. I guess this thread is finished.