MSI FM2-A85XA MOBO Question

I messed up the boot process BIOS settings on my MSI FM2-A85XA-G43
mobo. Dumb me.

That said - I now cannot display and then select from the boot
selections for my multi-boot machine - two hard drives - each with
its OS. It was working, so I know the hard drives are ok.

There must b e a BIOS selection to allow the boot menu. I had the
menu, but now it is gone. So I cannot select the boot drive I want.

No idea what I did, but I did.

Anyone with this MOBO that can help me? I Googled the matter but
found nothing.

Thanks

JW

On Tue, 01 Nov 2016 09:56:30 -0400, wrote:

I messed up the boot process BIOS settings on my MSI FM2-A85XA-G43
mobo. Dumb me.

That said - I now cannot display and then select from the boot
selections for my multi-boot machine - two hard drives - each with
its OS. It was working, so I know the hard drives are ok.

There must b e a BIOS selection to allow the boot menu. I had the
menu, but now it is gone. So I cannot select the boot drive I want.

No idea what I did, but I did.

Anyone with this MOBO that can help me? I Googled the matter but
found nothing.

Thanks

JW

I shud have included what I actually see:

Please select boot device:

UEFI Built-In EFI Shell
Enter Setup


That's all - I shud see the hard drives.

JW

On 11/1/2016 9:56 AM, wrote:
I messed up the boot process BIOS settings on my MSI FM2-A85XA-G43
mobo. Dumb me.

That said - I now cannot display and then select from the boot
selections for my multi-boot machine - two hard drives - each with
its OS. It was working, so I know the hard drives are ok.

There must b e a BIOS selection to allow the boot menu. I had the
menu, but now it is gone. So I cannot select the boot drive I want.

No idea what I did, but I did.

Anyone with this MOBO that can help me? I Googled the matter but
found nothing.

Thanks

JW


Don't know about that particular MB but when all else fails I usually (but
reluctantly) resort to the 'clear CMOS' procedure which should put the
system back into its virgin state from which it is usually easy to reset
boot options and devices. This is assuming that you haven't done anything
drastic like applying a password to the BIOS access since, if that has been
properly designed and implemented by the maker, it is close to unbreakable
by the lay user.

John McGaw wrote:
On 11/1/2016 9:56 AM, wrote:
I messed up the boot process BIOS settings on my MSI FM2-A85XA-G43
mobo. Dumb me.

That said - I now cannot display and then select from the boot
selections for my multi-boot machine - two hard drives - each with
its OS. It was working, so I know the hard drives are ok.

There must b e a BIOS selection to allow the boot menu. I had the
menu, but now it is gone. So I cannot select the boot drive I want.

No idea what I did, but I did.

Anyone with this MOBO that can help me? I Googled the matter but
found nothing.

Thanks

JW


Don't know about that particular MB but when all else fails I usually
(but reluctantly) resort to the 'clear CMOS' procedure which should put
the system back into its virgin state from which it is usually easy to
reset boot options and devices. This is assuming that you haven't done
anything drastic like applying a password to the BIOS access since, if
that has been properly designed and implemented by the maker, it is
close to unbreakable by the lay user.

When relaying info on "Clear CMOS" to a poster, you
have to deliver the standard warning (often in the user
manual, but not always).

"Remove all power from the computer before using
the Clear CMOS jumper"

That means, unplug the ATX supply, wait 30 seconds
or longer, and so on.

If you do not properly remove all power from the
computer, a three-pin ORing diode assembly will get
burned when you move the jumper to the Clear CMOS
position.

*******

With UEFI capable BIOS, some problems can't actually
be repaired. There is one thing you can do from
Windows, where the BIOS may lack the corresponding
counteracting setting, which means the system can
be effectively bricked.

I don't know enough about UEFI, to help posters out
of every dilemma in these cases. I have a UEFI system
too, and dread the day it's bricked and I haven't
a clue how to fix it :-(

With UEFI, the BIOS is a file system, and there is
persistent storage in there. In at least one case
(some laptop), it was possible to "overflow" one
of the storage areas, leading to a problem.

On my machine, I have the luxury of a "USB flasher port",
which works to program the BIOS even if no CPU is present
in the CPU socket. So I do have that weapon on my side.
But I don't really know if that will rescue me from
every possible calamity or not.

*******

UEFI Built-In EFI Shell

In this thread, clearing CMOS does not alleviate
the EFI Shell problem.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/...reply-fix.html

Now, of the various (hammer-like) solutions mentioned,
I kinda like the sound of this one.

"I solved the EFI Shell problem by enabling UEFI + Legacy in BIOS"

This is otherwise known as "CSM Module", depending
on the BIOS. The CSM Module provides legacy BIOS
support, and by turning that on, legacy-style OS
installations will work.

Paul

On Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:40:01 -0400, Paul
wrote:

John McGaw wrote:
On 11/1/2016 9:56 AM, wrote:
I messed up the boot process BIOS settings on my MSI FM2-A85XA-G43
mobo. Dumb me.

That said - I now cannot display and then select from the boot
selections for my multi-boot machine - two hard drives - each with
its OS. It was working, so I know the hard drives are ok.

There must b e a BIOS selection to allow the boot menu. I had the
menu, but now it is gone. So I cannot select the boot drive I want.

No idea what I did, but I did.

Anyone with this MOBO that can help me? I Googled the matter but
found nothing.

Thanks

JW


Don't know about that particular MB but when all else fails I usually
(but reluctantly) resort to the 'clear CMOS' procedure which should put
the system back into its virgin state from which it is usually easy to
reset boot options and devices. This is assuming that you haven't done
anything drastic like applying a password to the BIOS access since, if
that has been properly designed and implemented by the maker, it is
close to unbreakable by the lay user.

When relaying info on "Clear CMOS" to a poster, you
have to deliver the standard warning (often in the user
manual, but not always).

"Remove all power from the computer before using
the Clear CMOS jumper"

That means, unplug the ATX supply, wait 30 seconds
or longer, and so on.

If you do not properly remove all power from the
computer, a three-pin ORing diode assembly will get
burned when you move the jumper to the Clear CMOS
position.

*******

With UEFI capable BIOS, some problems can't actually
be repaired. There is one thing you can do from
Windows, where the BIOS may lack the corresponding
counteracting setting, which means the system can
be effectively bricked.

I don't know enough about UEFI, to help posters out
of every dilemma in these cases. I have a UEFI system
too, and dread the day it's bricked and I haven't
a clue how to fix it :-(

With UEFI, the BIOS is a file system, and there is
persistent storage in there. In at least one case
(some laptop), it was possible to "overflow" one
of the storage areas, leading to a problem.

On my machine, I have the luxury of a "USB flasher port",
which works to program the BIOS even if no CPU is present
in the CPU socket. So I do have that weapon on my side.
But I don't really know if that will rescue me from
every possible calamity or not.

*******

UEFI Built-In EFI Shell

In this thread, clearing CMOS does not alleviate
the EFI Shell problem.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/...reply-fix.html

Now, of the various (hammer-like) solutions mentioned,
I kinda like the sound of this one.

"I solved the EFI Shell problem by enabling UEFI + Legacy in BIOS"

This is otherwise known as "CSM Module", depending
on the BIOS. The CSM Module provides legacy BIOS
support, and by turning that on, legacy-style OS
installations will work.

Paul


Hi again Paul. I think you hit on what I did when playing around.
This MSI MOBO (which I have never liked because of failures such as
bad audio and USB3 other BIOS problems) and seems enmeshed in deep
deep doodoo. I am sure I remember now - changing 'Boot Mode Select'
from 'Legacy + UEFI' to just' UEFI' (the two choices) and back again
as I was trying to make the 'Boot Menu' show the hard drives, which it
stopped doing and now no longer does. So, I think I have already
tried your suggestion. Gotta look deeper it would seem (or get
another MOBO.

I guess I can always manually only connect the OS drive I want to
boot from each time. Ugh!

TX

JW

On Tue, 01 Nov 2016 14:57:22 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:40:01 -0400, Paul
wrote:

John McGaw wrote:
On 11/1/2016 9:56 AM, wrote:
I messed up the boot process BIOS settings on my MSI FM2-A85XA-G43
mobo. Dumb me.

That said - I now cannot display and then select from the boot
selections for my multi-boot machine - two hard drives - each with
its OS. It was working, so I know the hard drives are ok.

There must b e a BIOS selection to allow the boot menu. I had the
menu, but now it is gone. So I cannot select the boot drive I want.

No idea what I did, but I did.

Anyone with this MOBO that can help me? I Googled the matter but
found nothing.

Thanks

JW










Don't know about that particular MB but when all else fails I usually
(but reluctantly) resort to the 'clear CMOS' procedure which should put
the system back into its virgin state from which it is usually easy to
reset boot options and devices. This is assuming that you haven't done
anything drastic like applying a password to the BIOS access since, if
that has been properly designed and implemented by the maker, it is
close to unbreakable by the lay user.

When relaying info on "Clear CMOS" to a poster, you
have to deliver the standard warning (often in the user
manual, but not always).

"Remove all power from the computer before using
the Clear CMOS jumper"

That means, unplug the ATX supply, wait 30 seconds
or longer, and so on.

If you do not properly remove all power from the
computer, a three-pin ORing diode assembly will get
burned when you move the jumper to the Clear CMOS
position.

*******

With UEFI capable BIOS, some problems can't actually
be repaired. There is one thing you can do from
Windows, where the BIOS may lack the corresponding
counteracting setting, which means the system can
be effectively bricked.

I don't know enough about UEFI, to help posters out
of every dilemma in these cases. I have a UEFI system
too, and dread the day it's bricked and I haven't
a clue how to fix it :-(

With UEFI, the BIOS is a file system, and there is
persistent storage in there. In at least one case
(some laptop), it was possible to "overflow" one
of the storage areas, leading to a problem.

On my machine, I have the luxury of a "USB flasher port",
which works to program the BIOS even if no CPU is present
in the CPU socket. So I do have that weapon on my side.
But I don't really know if that will rescue me from
every possible calamity or not.

*******

UEFI Built-In EFI Shell

In this thread, clearing CMOS does not alleviate
the EFI Shell problem.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/...reply-fix.html

Now, of the various (hammer-like) solutions mentioned,
I kinda like the sound of this one.

"I solved the EFI Shell problem by enabling UEFI + Legacy in BIOS"

This is otherwise known as "CSM Module", depending
on the BIOS. The CSM Module provides legacy BIOS
support, and by turning that on, legacy-style OS
installations will work.

Paul


Hi again Paul. I think you hit on what I did when playing around.
This MSI MOBO (which I have never liked because of failures such as
bad audio and USB3 other BIOS problems) and seems enmeshed in deep
deep doodoo. I am sure I remember now - changing 'Boot Mode Select'
from 'Legacy + UEFI' to just' UEFI' (the two choices) and back again
as I was trying to make the 'Boot Menu' show the hard drives, which it
stopped doing and now no longer does. So, I think I have already
tried your suggestion. Gotta look deeper it would seem (or get
another MOBO.

I guess I can always manually only connect the OS drive I want to
boot from each time. Ugh!

TX

JW

More -

I chaged 'Integreated Periperals' which had r selections:
Disabled
IDE
AHCI
Raid

from AHCI to IDE and at least I then got a Boot Menu. However none of
the Boot Menu's selections wud boot up an OS (W7 W8 W10). It used to!

JW

wrote:


More -

I chaged 'Integreated Periperals' which had r selections:
Disabled
IDE
AHCI
Raid

from AHCI to IDE and at least I then got a Boot Menu. However none of
the Boot Menu's selections wud boot up an OS (W7 W8 W10). It used to!

JW

I'd still rate your situation as "imminent danger".
I wish I had a better recipe to offer. Maybe someone
else has a better idea. Anyway...

*******

You need to "re-arm" the drivers for that to work. Which is
easy to do if the OS in question is currently booted.
It's hard to do otherwise. You'd need to edit a registry
hive offline, using yet another OS.

There are a total of four keys typically involved,
giving you four different options for in-box driver.
You can arm all four, and let them fight it out :-)
If you arm four of them, the hardware SATA ports only
have one mode, so only one INF file matches the hardware
mode, and that's the driver that wins.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/922976

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...tallation.html

As far as I can remember, the details are slightly
different on the later OSes. This is not something
I'm doing on a regular basis.

The question is, how to easily do this when the
OS is offline and you can't boot.

*******

On Win10, someone uses Safe Mode to do the change.

http://www.tenforums.com/drivers-har...tallation.html

Now, in that example, they have a command

bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal

The bottom of this has more examples.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ndows-8-a.html

If you boot the computer with your Win10 installer DVD,
or with your Win10 rescue CD, and you use the
Command Prompt window in there, the "OS" in that
case is X: . Sometimes, the System Reserved folder
is C: in that case. In any case, you try listing the
partitions one at a time, and see if any of them
have a BCD

dir C:\boot\BCD

And if one is found, that could be where the
bcdedit command needs to be pointed.

You need to verify the "identifier" value. When booting
the CD, perhaps the actual OS identifier is "Default". You
use this to list the contents of the BCD on the
System Reserved partition. This dumps the BCD to the
screen, using the contents of the BCD on that partition.

bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD

Then, the command to use would look like this. This adds
an item to the BCD. So the command has two changed parts.
It has the "/store" part, to define where the CD session
is storing the BCD changes. And the "identifier" (in
this case my example uses Default), is the other bit of
info you want to gather.

bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {default} safeboot minimal

But you can see in the Tenforums thread, the results
are mixed, with some people seeming to brick things.

Paul

On Tue, 01 Nov 2016 16:50:00 -0400, Paul
wrote:

wrote:


More -

I chaged 'Integreated Periperals' which had r selections:
Disabled
IDE
AHCI
Raid

from AHCI to IDE and at least I then got a Boot Menu. However none of
the Boot Menu's selections wud boot up an OS (W7 W8 W10). It used to!

JW

I'd still rate your situation as "imminent danger".
I wish I had a better recipe to offer. Maybe someone
else has a better idea. Anyway...

*******

You need to "re-arm" the drivers for that to work. Which is
easy to do if the OS in question is currently booted.
It's hard to do otherwise. You'd need to edit a registry
hive offline, using yet another OS.

There are a total of four keys typically involved,
giving you four different options for in-box driver.
You can arm all four, and let them fight it out :-)
If you arm four of them, the hardware SATA ports only
have one mode, so only one INF file matches the hardware
mode, and that's the driver that wins.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/922976

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...tallation.html

As far as I can remember, the details are slightly
different on the later OSes. This is not something
I'm doing on a regular basis.

The question is, how to easily do this when the
OS is offline and you can't boot.

*******

On Win10, someone uses Safe Mode to do the change.

http://www.tenforums.com/drivers-har...tallation.html

Now, in that example, they have a command

bcdedit /set {current} safeboot minimal

The bottom of this has more examples.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials...ndows-8-a.html

If you boot the computer with your Win10 installer DVD,
or with your Win10 rescue CD, and you use the
Command Prompt window in there, the "OS" in that
case is X: . Sometimes, the System Reserved folder
is C: in that case. In any case, you try listing the
partitions one at a time, and see if any of them
have a BCD

dir C:\boot\BCD

And if one is found, that could be where the
bcdedit command needs to be pointed.

You need to verify the "identifier" value. When booting
the CD, perhaps the actual OS identifier is "Default". You
use this to list the contents of the BCD on the
System Reserved partition. This dumps the BCD to the
screen, using the contents of the BCD on that partition.

bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD

Then, the command to use would look like this. This adds
an item to the BCD. So the command has two changed parts.
It has the "/store" part, to define where the CD session
is storing the BCD changes. And the "identifier" (in
this case my example uses Default), is the other bit of
info you want to gather.

bcdedit /store C:\boot\BCD /set {default} safeboot minimal

But you can see in the Tenforums thread, the results
are mixed, with some people seeming to brick things.

Paul


Well - I finally bit the bullet and started over. Took some time. I
physically disconnected ALL drives, and restarted one drive at a time.
As soon as I restarted, the BIOS boot menu returned, which spurred me
on. I then re-connected and restarted the PC, one drive at a time
(re-booted the added drive each time).

Now all is well. Thanks for suggestions. Love the MSI BIOS. Not
really.

JW