The MSI MAG B650 tomahawk is not starting on my M.2 slot or USB drive.
The MSI MAG B650 tomahawk is not starting on my M.2 slot or USB drive.
So I built this rig back in July of last year and its been going strong up until the past week. It has. a 7800x3d, 32gb 6000 mhz cl 32 ddr5 ram, a 4070, and a 2 tb m.2 and the mobo in the title. I've narrowed down the issue to the bios just not booting into any storage device, i've tried 2 different m.2 slots, and it wont boot into a usb either. Here's the issue so far:
The issue that I'm having is that the pc won't go past the bios. This started happening a week ago, the pc was stuck on the MSI logo and the loading wheel kept spinning, so I just reset the cmos by jumping it and that did the trick. Fast forward 2 days from then, the same thing happened, however resetting the cmos did not help. I tried a bunch of different things, updating bios, reseating ram, trying 1 stick vs both sticks in different slots, and when I tried to repair windows using a usb with windows media installation it wouldn't boot into that either. Nothing seemed to work until I got to a screen that said 'attempting to repair windows' and after leaving it at that screen for a while it finally booted. Then each time that I changed something in the bios, I would have the same issue. While I was in windows I tried to repair corrupted files, and interestingly it said that there were some corrupted files in my windows that it has since fixed.
The issue has arrised again this morning and I have been trouble shooting for hours now. I tried doing what I did before where I restarted pc 3 times and got to screen where it says 'attempting to repair windows' and then the screen will just go black and my devices on the pc will start flashing on and off and my pc will stay running but the device won't boot into anything. I've tried toggling between the uefi/legacy boot option in the bios and that hasn't a difference. Has anyone had this issue and know of how to fix it. I think i've narrowed the problem down to the bios not booting into any storage device but im not sure.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I spent a lot on this mobo, but i'm starting to think I would be better off looking for another mobo, unless theres an easy fix someone knows of. Thanks in advance!
Welcome to the forums, newcomer! Could you share your BIOS version for the motherboard? Which models of M.2 drives are connected and what slots they're using? Regarding the drives and the board, ensure there are Q_LED's onboard to indicate any POST problems. If none are static, the issue likely lies with the OS installation. Since fixing isn't an option, reinstalling the OS with all drives disconnected (except the one you want) is recommended. Install drivers in elevated command mode while offline, then update via the website. Also, make sure to recreate your bootable USB installer to avoid corruption.
So currently you don’t have access to a PC. I would try making a bootable USB with an ISO such as System Rescue or Hiren to check if it boots. If it works, your computer is likely fine and the issue is with Windows. This usually happens when trying to boot from a different drive type (like SATA to NVMe) or when using a BIOS set to AHCI with a RAID Windows installation. The fix is often safe mode, where Windows corrects the boot partition. Your situation seems different—your system booted after repair but now shows a black screen. It would be useful to see if it boots with the systems I mentioned earlier. Also, if Windows fails three times in a row and automatically loads the Recovery Environment, can you reach that step?