PC won't boot to any device

[magicmanred]

Hello all.

Issue:
I decided to try the cpu microcode delete, and bios mod in order to get higher turbo multipliers/frequencies in full load on my xeon.
Details can be found on this post:
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-controls-turbo-core-in-xeons.2496647/

I downloaded the latest BIOS for my MB.
Used the UBU tool to strip the Microcode.
Prepared a Fat32 USB bootable flash drive with all required tools/BIOS/shell on it.
Reset my BIOS to defaults.
Shut down.
Popped the USB drive into the rear of my computer in a USB 2.0 port.
Started my PC and forgot to press DEL to get into the BIOS to flash the Modded BIOS first.
So the PC booted from the USB stick.
I canceled what seemed to be some sort of shell where you can access drives by typing fs0:, fs1:, fs2: (where the #'s are the drives).
Then shut down my computer and pulled the USB stick just to boot it again to make sure it works.
It wouldn't boot into Windows.

Before I get into more detail, here is a list of my hardware:
Fractal Design Core 500
Asrock X99E-ITX/AC
Intel Xeon E5 2696 v3
64GB (32x2) Kingston ECC DDR4 2133
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FE
Silverstone SX800-LTI 800W SFX-L 80 Plus Titanium Modular
Slim DVD/BR Writer
3.5" USB2.0 Card Reader
Drives:
1 x Samsung 960 Pro 512GB NVME - OS drive (Windows 10. Installed in Legacy/BIOS mode, then converted successfully to UEFI mode).
2 x Samsung 850 Pro 256GB in Raid 0 - Games drive
2 x WD Black 5TB in Raid 1 - Storage/Media drive
1 x WD Black 1.5TB - Backup/Restore drive

What I've attempted/tired:
Enabled/Disabled secure boot.
Enabled/Disabled USB Legacy mode.
Disabled all boot devices except for "Windows Boot Manager - Samsung 960 Pro..."
Unplugged all hard drives including the USB for the Card reader and the ODD... leaving just the NVME.
Removed the NVME... still wouldn't boot to any USB or Disc.
Tried booting to a Windows 10 DVD.
Tried booting to a Windows 10 Recovery USB.
Tried booting to an Acronis 2017 Recovery CD.
Tried booting to an Acronis 2017 Recovery USB.
Tried using one stick of either Ram.
Tried having only one core enabled in different cores.
Tried Clearing BIOS.
Tried Flashing BIOS with fresh download of 3.6.
Tried Flashing BIOS to one step older (3.1).
I ordered a new BIOS chip that will be coming in soon (hope that isn't the issue, but good to have a backup I suppose).

The NVME drive is seen in BIOS.
The partitions are seen in the shell that the USB stick boots into.
I can even see all contents of the drive.

I have a recent Acronis Image of my OS/NVME drive sitting on my 1.5TB Backup/Recovery drive, and would consider restoring it to my OS/NVME drive, but seeing as I can't even get into the Acronis interface, I can't even try the restore.

Really badly need help here.

 

[Ketchup]

So how far is it getting? Can you still access the BIOS? What is the last message you see?

Also, were you actually able to late any BIOS uodate on this board?

 

[magicmanred]

Bios fully functioning.
Still can flash to old / recent bios successfully.

When trying to boot to the NVME OS drive, the dots swirl and then stop.
When trying to boot to Windows Recovery USB, same thing.
When trying to boot to Acronis, it gets to the "Loading Drivers" and hangs.

 

[Ketchup]

If you boot to, say, a flash drive with a Win 10 installer in it, what does it do?

 

[RLGL]

Strip everything off the board and try to boot to USB. Will the boot drive work in another computer?

 

[magicmanred]

If you boot to, say, a flash drive with a Win 10 installer in it, what does it do?

It hangs in the same way.
I have a win 10 DVD and it hangs right after the bios post... it starts reading the dvd and then hangs.
I have a win 10 USB and it hangs. Same time as the dvd does.

Strip everything off the board and try to boot to USB. Will the boot drive work in another computer?

I tried removing all bootable devices including my odd, and usb card reader and tried booting to a USB. Same thing happens.

:'(

 

[Ketchup]

So, if you are passing p.o.s.t., but can't boot off anything, sounds like something in the boot menu is holding it up. What does your boot order look like? While you are at it, go ahead and, from tbe bios, disable any devices you aren't using.

 

[magicmanred]

So, if you are passing p.o.s.t., but can't boot off anything, sounds like something in the boot menu is holding it up. What does your boot order look like? While you are at it, go ahead and, from tbe bios, disable any devices you aren't using.

I've went as far as pulling out every single drive/onboard-usb/odd and tried to boot off of a win 10 usb, and an acronis USB and the same thing happens.

 

[magicmanred]

I have success booting to a Win 10 USB.
(Further troubleshooting to follow).

Not sure what I did different, but I cracked open my pc and disconnected every single drive.
Including USB headers of any sort & ODD of course.
Cleared CMOS, and went into the bios and this time I disabled some extra things.
I disabled C state. I also disabled USB 3 entirely.

The PC cycled some restarts... and when it would restart, it would go straight into bios since there were no drives attached.

I shut it down and plugged my Win 10 USB in the back in a 2.0 port and success getting in.

Next step will be putting the NVME drive in (OS drive) and booting into bios... saving settings, then booting to see if it will load windows.

I hope this doesn't ruin my Raid 0 and Raid 1 array in case it gets into Windows and doesn't see the 4 drives.

Will report back.

--EDIT--
NVME in, and am able to post to windows 10 USB setup.
I am not going to try to post Windows as of yet. I will plug in the drives one at a time and see what gives. I attempted the Windows Startup Repair for good measure, but it said "Startup Repair couldn't repair your PC (hope that didn't do damage to the EFI partition). May start with ODD & USB.
If I get as far as having all of the drives in and still am able to get into the windows 10 EUFI setup, then I will attempt to boot windows, and then change one bios setting at a time.

--EDIT--
I'm in windows. NVME drive only.
Shutting down and plugging in USB 3 header. Then starting again.
Then USB header for Card reader. Then starting again.
Then ODD. Then starting again.

--EDIT--
Success with above.
Success plugging in my 1.5TB backup/recovery drive and booting with it recognized as well.
Now will try plugging in my two 5TB drives in Raid 1 array and see if I get into windows.
After that, will plug in my two 512gb SSD's in Raid 0 array and see if it gets into windows.

 

[magicmanred]

Computer is hanging with my two WD Black 5TB drives plugged in that I use as a Raid 1 array in Windows.

This is very odd as I have removed them before and had the same issue with booting.

I will remove them again and see if I get into windows, then I'll plug in the two 512gb 850 Pros that I use in Raid 0 and see if it hangs then...

--EDIT--
Raid 0 array works.
Am now plugging in 1 of the Raid 1 5TB drives to see if my data isn't lost...
This will be a dreadful realization if I cannot re-build the array somehow...

 

[magicmanred]

I cannot boot with either of the two 5TB drives that were part of my Raid 1 array.

This is all starting to make sense if the theory I have may be true.
Especially since this damage was done long before I flashed any bios, or made any bios setting change at all.

If you have a Raid array (perhaps only ones that were built the lazy way in Windows) and you boot off of the USB stick into the shell... the shell may not be able to recognize the array and may somehow screw up the array while it's sorting what drive numbers are assigned to what.

Since the Raid 1 array was the first in the list of SATA ports, the shell screwed those up first which explains why my Raid 0 array is still fine.

For those that have Raid arrays that want to do the xeon CPU Microcode delete mod, for the love of all that's holy, unplug your arrays... in fact, unplug everything but your boot OS (long as it isn't a Raid) and it may just save you days of serious frustration before booting to the shell on a USB stick.

Now I have to figure out how to save over 3TB of data somehow...

 

[Ketchup]

Well I am glad you figuresd it out and you did a great job of troubleshooting!

Is the data on the RAID 1 array backed up somewhere? If it's not, I am going to nitpick a little - RAID 1 is for downtime prevention. It isn't, and shouldn't be used as, a backup.

 

[magicmanred]

I have GREAT news.
Fortunately my theory was wrong...

For the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around what exactly happened and when... but one thing is for sure, my memory definitely failed me because I must have cleared or reset the cmos/bios settings as it was definitely the culprit.

Turns out, disabling C State helped... but to add more detail...

When my bios was defaulted... C state went to something like C6 with retention or something along those lines...
When that option is enabled, the boot issue happens.
Disabling C state altogether does fix it, however, enabling it, and changing the one setting of "C6 with retention" to "C0/C1" (as I originally had it, which I found through browsing through photos I had taken of old bios settings when I first set things up and built this PC) then it boots fine.

I put the Raid 1 array back in, and to my delight... IT WORKED.

Windows is back up and all raid arrays are fine.

Perhaps one day soon I will either build a NAS, or get a 5tb external drive to back up all of the data from this Raid 1 array, and then rebuild the Raid 1 array through bios rather than the lazy way through windows.

For the Raid 0... I don't care if it fails as that is just a gaming drive.
But I'd be lying if my heart didn't skip a few beats at the thought that I may have lost the data on the 5tb array.




Well... with all that said... I'm confident that I'll be stubborn enough to attempt this modded bios again, keeping a keen eye on the C state settings in my darn bios

 

[VirtualLarry]

That seems kind of weird, that any C-state setting would affect booting, but I guess, there you have it...

 

[magicmanred]

That seems kind of weird, that any C-state setting would affect booting, but I guess, there you have it...

Right? Seriously...

Well all I can hope is that this saves someone the frustration that I've went through and they find this thread because this was scary!

 

[XavierMace]

How old is your power supply?

 

[magicmanred]

I have a Silverstone SX800-LTI 800W SFX-L 80 Plus Titanium Modular

New, built with system.

 

[mikeymikec]

But I'd be lying if my heart didn't skip a few beats at the thought that I may have lost the data on the 5tb array.

Backups. I realise that even with backups that restoring terabytes of data is a tedious ball-ache but it's way better than the worst case scenario.

As for the C-state thing, try browsing the asrock forums (I assume there are some) and see whether anyone else has had issues with =>C7 using that board?