MSI Z690 Carbon WiFi won't boot Windows SSD OR Windows 11 installer USB - losing my mind
Hi all,
I'm hoping someone can help because I've run out of ideas.
I recently bought my brother's old PC as he recently bought a new one. It was fully working and I have personally seen it boot into Windows and play games shortly before inheriting it.
Specs:
- CPU: Intel Core i9-12900F
- RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 5600MHz
- GPU: RTX 4070 Ti Super
- Motherboard: MSI Z690 Carbon WiFi (DDR5)
- Cooling: Corsair H150i Elite LCD 360mm AIO
- Case: Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL
The PC was sold without storage as he needed to keep the drive, so I installed my own Samsung 970 Evo NVMe SSD containing a working Windows 11 installation from my old AMD system. I also tried installing a new Windows 11 installation on my Samsung Pro 990 (which I was using as the second drive in my old system).
On powering the PC, it goes straight to BIOS and won't boot windows on any of the above drives. It also won't boot to Win 11 media creation tool on my USB drive.
The symptoms:
- BIOS detects the SSD and USB drives correctly.
- BIOS detects "Windows Boot Manager" on the SSD.
- Boot mode is UEFI.
- Pressing F11 on boot shows both the SSD and "UEFI: SanDisk Partition 1" (Windows 11 installation USB created using Microsoft's Media Creation Tool).
- Selecting either the SSD or the USB causes the screen to go black for about a second and then return straight back to the F11 boot menu.
- No Windows logo appears.
- No error messages appear on screen but mobo shows a "A2" error on the onboard display. ("IDE Detect" or "Problem with IDE.")
- BIOS itself is stable and retains settings/date/time.
Things I've already tried:
- Reseated RAM.
- Reseated GPU.
- Reseated SSD.
- Tried different USB ports.
- Confirmed the SSD and USB boot perfectly in my old PC.
- Disabled Secure Boot put upon saving and exiting, the PC restarts and again goes straight to BIOS where any changes I make within BIOS revert back.
- Set Windows Boot Manager and/or USB as first boot option.
- Tried booting SSD and USB directly from the F11 menu - screen flashes for a second as if it is trying to boot but just goes back to the boot menu.
What confuses me is that if this was just a Windows installation issue from moving AMD -> Intel, I would still expect the Windows 11 installer USB to boot.
Because the USB also fails, I'm starting to suspect a BIOS/UEFI issue on the motherboard.
Has anyone seen an MSI Z690 board behave like this before? Is there anything else I should check before I try a BIOS flash using the Flash BIOS button?
Any help would be massively appreciated.