Device requires an SSD for startup.
Device requires an SSD for startup.
I'm gonna try and give as much detail as possible. Specs: - Seasonic GB3 650w - Asus Prime B550 Plus - Ryzen 7 3700x - 2x 8gb DDR4 Patriot Viper 2666 - 2x 8gb DDR4 goldkey 2666 - GTX 1070 8gb Zotac - Silicone Power A55 512gb (Main Boot) - Inland 240gb (for Linux) - 3tb HGST HDD (for storage) - SD card reader A few weeks ago I was undervolting my CPU to try and get a little lower idle wattage. It didn't really make much of a change according to my "Kill A Watt". This is important because when I messed with SOC voltage I would get some crashes, but windows seemed to run about as good as before. What I noticed when I was playing around with the clock speeds was how slow my boot times were and how much Windows 10 throttled my SSD at boot, then I remembered it probably doesn't have DRAM. Edit: I tried undervolting using "Ryzen Master" first then set it back to default and uninstall it, I heard about the program and just wanted to try it. I later moved on to just doing it in the BIOS. I am getting some similar issues when looking up "Ryzen Master bricked motherboard". Fast forward to yesterday I bought a Samsung 970 evo that was on sale at Microcenter. I went to the system to clone the drive but before I do that I should probably finish this pending update. When I went to update, it crashed. I let it restart and it said it was continuing the update. Some time later windows booted up like normal. To be safe I checked for any new updates and it didn't find any, so I restarted the system and it was still fine. Now I moved on to cloning the old drive. I loaded up MiniTool Partition wizard and selected to clone my boot dive to the Samsung. After a couple minutes the Partion wizard said I would need to restart in order to complete the transfer. That made some sense to me because it can't really clone the drive it's running on if it's busy, and I assumed that it'll probably load some program into RAM and continue the cloning. It restarted to a simple interface that just showed transfer progress. After about 3-4 hours the progress got to 98% and had an error then restarted back into Windows. (I just found out you can use Etcher now to do this, so I'm redoing the clone using some usb adapters and my laptop) I was thinking that I should still try it even though it errored out. Maybe I can do the transfer in linux or something if it didn't end up working. I turned the PSU switch off, turned the computer on it's side, pulled out the old SSD and put in the new one. In the same (top) slot which should be pcie 4.0 compatible. I turned the system back on and I got a red CPU light error. I checked to see if the drive is all the way in and isn't shorting anything, tried turning it on and the same issue. I moved around the RAM before the CPU because I remember that sometimes causes a CPU error code as well, no change. I pulled the CPU cooler off, carefully took the CPU out, no bent pins, no bad contacts that I could see. I reseated it, no change, cleaned the pins and socket with contact cleaner, no change, so I put the cool back on. Turning this whole process I reset the BIOS a few times by cutting power, taking the battery out, and shorting the pins. After a while I just wanted something to happen, so I set it back to the original state with the old SSD installed and it worked fine except for a BIOS setup prompt which should be expected. I was able to set the BIOS to it's defaults and boot into Windows like normal. Now I'm going a little crazy because I can't understand why it only works with that drive. I tried booting the system with no drive = CPU error, no GPU = CPU error, no RAM = RAM error (at least that makes sense). All I can think of is if part of the BIOS is tight to that SSD. I then updated the BIOS with a flash drive and it installed successfully, but it changed nothing. Does it have to do with UEFI and secure boot? idk because I've never experienced this. Google doesn't have answers, Duck Duck Go doesn't have answers. I am going insane. Update: Won't with original SSD if it's in the bottom m.2 slot. Update 2: I finished cloning the SSD again using Etcher this time and I can boot into it, BUT! only if the original SSD is installed. So rn I have the SP SSD in slot 1 with the Samsung in slot 2. I still can't boot off the Samsung on its own, it needs the other SSD. One thing to add that I didn't think about, for the boot SSD there's two options in the bios - "Windows Boot Manager" - "ubuntu" Also I can't select the SP SSD as a boot drive while the Samsung is installed. I don't even see it in the bios. Yet I'll see it labeled as offline in windows. MAJOR Update: I think Ryzen Master bricked the CPU. I installed an Athlon 200GE (which is not on the supported CPU list) and all my issues went away, it booted up with no SSD just fine. I'm trying to contact AMD for support, but I wish I knew if Ryzen Master interacts with the CPU directly after this whole ordeal. I tried reinstall and uninstalling Ryzen Master on the 3700x again and nothing changed (no boot without SSD). I think the motherboard has been been actually giving the correct error the whole time now. Keep in mind I never overclocked, only undervolted. Edited August 14, 2023 by VulpusOtaku Important note
You're using BIOS version 2006. Updating to the latest version 3202 is recommended. Recent updates have enhanced stability, UEFI support, fTPM functionality, and addressed Ryzen-related issues. While it might not fix your specific problem, it's a worthwhile update.
Power on the old OS disk (no other drives connected) and read this guide to check or change its partition layout in GPT format. If BitLocker is active, power it down. You're doing well—we've removed two possible problems for cloning. Attempt cloning again.