Can't boot to USB stick on new system

[Akin]

Greetings all!

So, on my new system, the motherboard is an MSI Pro X870E-P WIFI.

I can get to a boot menu by hitting F11 during startup, and then I can select the USB stick that has Spinrite on it.

However, when I hit ENTER, the screen goes black for a second, then the boot menu returns. And I can select the USB stick that has Spinrite on it, and hit ENTER, and... the screen goes black for a second, then the boot menu returns... etc, etc...

Argh.

Any ideas?

 

[DanR]

Any ideas?

Yes! I suspect that MSI Pro X870E-P WIFI. motherboard is booting UEFI. That is incompatible with SpinRite.

However, that motherboard also supports legacy boot, which is what SpinRite needs.

You will need to get into the BIOS setup and change the booting from UEFI to Legacy. And disable Secure boot too if it is enabled. If you are using BitLocker backup your BitLocker keys before disabling Secure Boot.

 

[Akin]

Yes! I suspect that MSI Pro X870E-P WIFI. motherboard is booting UEFI. That is incompatible with SpinRite.

However, that motherboard also supports legacy boot, which is what SpinRite needs.

You will need to get into the BIOS setup and change the booting from UEFI to Legacy. And disable Secure boot too if it is enabled. If you are using BitLocker backup your BitLocker keys before disabling Secure Boot.

I’m not sure about “secure boot”, but I’ll check when I get home. I don’t use bitlocker or that stupid microsoft cloud drive… ugh… took forever to permanently turn that damn thing off.

And I’m pretty sure it’s using UEFI, I see that on the boot menu. “UEFI Sandisk USB drive” and “UEFI WIndows Boot Loader”…

 

[DanR]

And I’m pretty sure it’s using UEFI, I see that on the boot menu. “UEFI Sandisk USB drive” and “UEFI WIndows Boot Loader”…

Yup You are booting UEFI. You will need to get that changed to Legacy boot and disable secure boot if enabled. Then you are golden!

 

[Akin]

Yup You are booting UEFI. You will need to get that changed to Legacy boot and disable secure boot if enabled. Then you are golden!

Is that something I can set and leave, or will I need to switch it back from legacy to uefi once i’m done with spinrite?

 

[miquelfire]

Windows might not like having that setting switched (and if you're running Windows 11, it might not support non-UEFI boots, but take this with a pile of salt as I might be talking out of my butt).

 

[Akin]

Windows might not like having that setting switched (and if you're running Windows 11, it might not support non-UEFI boots, but take this with a pile of salt as I might be talking out of my butt).

Windows 10, but I’ll try it both ways and see what works best.

 

[Bplayer]

On some of my PC's I need to turn off secure boot and enable Legacy mode to run SpinRite, and sometime I forget to reverse those changes. Win 11 runs fine in either mode, but the PC will be better protected in UEFI mode with secure boot on. It is like keeping your front door locked. You may never have a problem with the door unlocked, but why chance it.

 

[DanR]

Is that something I can set and leave, or will I need to switch it back from legacy to uefi once i’m done with spinrite?

Windows 10, but I’ll try it both ways and see what works best.

Windows 10 will definitely NOT care. If you are comfortable running without UEFI and Secure boot then you may leave it as is.

I have 3 Win 10 Pro systems all legacy boot6ing. I have never had a problem. What it comes down to is your comfort level.

 

[Tazz]

If you’re into gaming just note that newer titles require secure boot to be enabled for the game to launch/run.

 

[Akin]

Okay, so, does anybody *actually* know how to do this? On an MSI Pro X870E-P WIFI motherboard?

USB is already set to enable legacy mode. I can't find a TURN OFF SECURE BOOT button, or a TURN OFF UEFI button.

I'm starting to think that I can't boot into a non-UEFI USB thing at all. And I still don';t even know what UEFI is. All I want to do is run Spinrite to see if it can fix the clicking that my HDD started making, or if I need to buy a new one.

 

[ColbyBouma]

It looks like you can toggle CSM under: Advanced --> Advanced --> BIOS CSM/UEFI Mode

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-X870E-P-WIFI/support#manual

https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/AMDAM5800BIOS_English.pdf

Secure Boot is under: Advanced --> Security --> Secure Boot

 

[PHolder]

And I still don';t even know what UEFI is

Do you know what the BIOS is? Both are the same thing to a PC, they're what tells the Operating System about the hardware at the very beginning of system initialization. SpinRite runs under FreeDOS, which is about the oldest PC OS there is. (Well technically there is CP/M but almost no one runs that any more.) In DOS, the BIOS more or less becomes part of the OS. It is what talks to the hardware, such as the keyboard, the disks, the video card and the printer or modem or any other hardware. Windows 3.1 (the first version anyone would have likely seriously used) was just a pretty user interface (a GUI) on top of DOS. Starting with Windows 95, Windows slowly began to shed more and more of it's use of the BIOS. In the late Windows XP time frame, Intel worked with Apple to "invent" a more modern replacement for the BIOS, and UEFI was born. UEFI added support for a GUI all it's own, and for managing the mouse, and a better way to handle larger disks (the GPT partitioning scheme), better support for USB and a bunch of "modernity". Somewhere about 2020 Intel decided it was time for the BIOS to die, and many modern motherboards no longer can even run BIOS at all.

In among all this transition is SpinRite. Version 1 was created when DOS was still relatively new. It's been through a lot of change over the years, but the one thing it hasn't yet done is lost its ties to DOS. This is the reason why, as of version 6.1, you still need to have a CSM loaded in your UEFI machine so that there is a translation layer of software that speaks DOS to SpinRite and UEFI to the rest of the system. Without this ability to "wedge in" DOS support, SpinRite 6.1 and before simply cannot run.

 

[Akin]

It looks like you can toggle CSM under: Advanced --> Advanced --> BIOS CSM/UEFI Mode

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/PRO-X870E-P-WIFI/support#manual

https://download.msi.com/archive/mnu_exe/mb/AMDAM5800BIOS_English.pdf

View attachment 1921
Secure Boot is under: Advanced --> Security --> Secure Boot
View attachment 1922

Well, I've toggled that BIOS CSM/UEFI MODE before, and it turns out that secure boot is disabled by default.

So, with it set to CSM and secure boot off, I get...

EDIT Huh. My picture doesn't appear.

This is the weirdest forum setup ever.

Anyway, the boot menu allows me to select the USB stick with Spinrite on it, but it specifically states that it will boot it as a UEFI, and if I select it, the boot menu disappears for a split second then reappears and I can select the USB all I want, but it won't boot.

 

[ColbyBouma]

EDIT Huh. My picture doesn't appear.

Attachments have to be less than 500 kB.

but it specifically states that it will boot it as a UEFI

How did you create your SpinRite USB drive?

 

[Akin]

Attachments have to be less than 500 kB.

How did you create your SpinRite USB drive?

It'd be nice if there was some kind of message stating that my picture needed to be smaller than 500k, then.

Anyway, I made it by running SpinRite.exe and following the on-screen instructions.

 

[ColbyBouma]

Anyway, I made it by running SpinRite.exe and following the on-screen instructions.

OK, that is the standard way, which should work. Unfortunately, it seems like your motherboard is not compatible with DOS. Do you have any old computers you can try?

 

[Akin]

OK, that is the standard way, which should work. Unfortunately, it seems like your motherboard is not compatible with DOS. Do you have any old computers you can try?

Just my laptop, and last time I ran spinrite on a laptop it ruined the drive by deleting hidden partitions or something and I had to reinstall windows from scratch.

 

[peterblaise]

@Akin "... last time I ran spinrite on a laptop it ruined the drive by deleting hidden partitions or something ..."

Yeouch! Any documentation you can share on that - SpinRite LOG,
ChkDsk report - so we can look over your shoulder and see what you
see, figure out what happened?

Thanks.

 

[Akin]

@Akin "... last time I ran spinrite on a laptop it ruined the drive by deleting hidden partitions or something ..."

Yeouch! Any documentation you can share on that - SpinRite LOG,
ChkDsk report - so we can look over your shoulder and see what you
see, figure out what happened?

Thanks.

Oh, this was more than a decade ago, probably more. When did they stop putting spinning HDDs in laptops? I don’t even have that laptop any more let alone any details.

I should clarify that the HDD was actually fine, it continued working until I got rid of that laptop, but all the recovery partitions and stuff that Dell had put on it were cleared and I had to reformat it as one volume and reinstall windows from scratch. Lost all the data on it.