Changed mobo+CPU+RAM = SSD won't boot

Hey,

I changed motherboard, CPU and RAM, but decided to keep rest of the build untouched.
I ran into an issue, that the system won't boot from SSD, where I have Win10 installed. (Actually this was very expected issue anyway)

BIOS recognizes the correct amount of RAM, the CPU, and the SSD model (Samsung 850 EVO), but when I save and exit BIOS, computer restarts, and goes into the BIOS again.

The motherboard is ASUS Maximus VIII Hero, and it has a Q code display on it. The code usually stopping on 'b2' for a second, then lights up the (possibly) boot device led, and continues to BIOS, and then Q code display showing code '99'. Could this be just some UEFI / Secure Boot / Whatever issue?

The primary (and currently only) boot device is set to that SSD.

I know I shouldn't boot into that windows anyway, as it might not like the hw changes I've made, but currently I have no Windows CD/DVD, and I have lost my serial key for it.. :D So clean Windows install currently is not possible.

Basically I have some clue what to look for, but thought to give it a shot opening up here, if someone have had experiences on this sort of issue. It might be just a setting somewhere, a tag to be untagged, or vice versa..

Solution: I installed a new copy of windows (8.1) on that SSD, and everything have been working just fine with it \o/

windows ten makes a note of the unique code that is in the MB BIOS and embeds it into the windows OS, this is what stops the system booting when you change the MB.
it has done this to try and get you to buy a new copy of windows,
there is a way to use your existing copy of windows, which can be found on the MS website, My son recently used his old win 10 codes on a new system that he just had built, I cannot give you anymore info on what he did ATM as my son is not about.
When I know more I will let you know what he did

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dadjitsu

windows ten makes a note of the unique code that is in the MB BIOS and embeds it into the windows OS, this is what stops the system booting when you change the MB.
it has done this to try and get you to buy a new copy of windows,
there is a way to use your existing copy of windows, which can be found on the MS website, My son recently used his old win 10 codes on a new system that he just had built, I cannot give you anymore info on what he did ATM as my son is not about.
When I know more I will let you know what he did

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Ok thanks Dadjitsu for clarification, and that makes a lot sense :)

There's always a fear when upgrading a build.. and all the RMA posts on the forums doesn't take that away, but now I'm quite certain and relieved that all the components might be just fine, just Win10 being an arse. I might have 8.1 lying around somewhere, but I'm not in a hurry. Let's wait what tricks there are left :)

First, while I could be wrong, I'm not sure that it's the Windows protection kicking in because how are you supposed to even access the OS if you're being thrown straight to the BIOS? In my experience with that protection and Windows 7, you are able to boot up until the login screen where the OS will let you know that it thinks something is fishy, and then have you contact Microsoft. If you're being thrown directly into the BIOS, then how would any user know to call Microsoft? And at what phone number? They wouldn't.

However, I don't doubt that you might end up seeing that Windows OS protection thing pop up once you finally reach the login screen because you changed out the motherboard.

Second, I also don't think the code that the motherboard is showing while in the BIOS is important, but I could be wrong (again). Normally, the motherboard either has its own code to let you know you're in the BIOS, or it will show the CPU temperature if the manufacturer has implemented that. On my X79 Asus board it shows a code of "AA" when I'm in Windows, which is just a code to indicate that it has fully booted. Your motherboard's manual says "99" means "Super IO Initialization" ...whatever that means, but if you're in the BIOS and the board is working at that point, then it probably doesn't mean anything other than "you're in the BIOS."

Third, it doesn't sound like the system is even trying to boot to the drive since you're getting thrown directly into the BIOS. If it was failing to boot there should be some type of error message that pops up after the BIOS has gone through its tests, and it would say something along the lines of: "No system disk found".

I believe all BIOSes these days have some sort of way to directly boot to a device straight from inside of them, and I would try that. If you make changes to the BIOS before trying to boot from the device it will likely want to restart the machine, but if you make no changes and just "force boot" from a device, it should try to load it up right from there. Looking at your motherboard's manual, it says there is a boot override option, which sounds exactly what I'm referring to.

Ultimately, the problem may also be that you're trying to use the old install on the disk, since it currently has its own chipset drivers which were meant for another motherboard, so a fresh install may be what needs to be done, but you can also try another SATA port if you want (the ones closest to the RAM are the primary ones according to the manual). Or it may have something to do with UEFI and secure booting, but I'm not familiar with any of that stuff.

Hey MiRai, thanks for the reply and all the trouble going through the manual and all :)

I was quite tired last night when I built that rig, so I'm not sure if I tried the force boot already; I faintly remember that I did, and it didn't work. I have also been waiting to see the familiar System Disk error, but I don't know how the current motherboards handle these situations, could be just "on error go back to BIOS" whereas error could be the one Dadjitsu wrote about.

I was thinking to try ROG Ramdisk and perform a clean Windows 8.1 install on it. I went a bit crazy with the 64GB kit so I think I could spare a few gigs for that disk and see if I could at least access that SSD for copying some forgotten documents and .. Firefox profile files. (not sure if the disk should be made in Windows though, huh.. (I'm currently at work, just speculating everything) )

I did BIOS update yesterday as a first step on the troubleshoot, but that didn't get me any further, but I'll try to tame that beast on this weekend. The motherboard itself seem to give a lot of information about what's going on, so I got hopes up (:

http://www.howtogeek.com/226510/how-...%99s-hardware/