Aorus Z790 Elite AX - 'No Bootable Device Found'

[johndon]

I've been a PC user and software developer for years but I've just built my first PC.  The PC posted first time, happy days but, it only gets as far as the BIOS which tells me that no bootable device can be found.

 

Motherboard, as per the title is an Aorus Z790 Elite AX

NVME SSD with a clone of an existing Windows 10 installation on it - the BIOS recognises that the SSD is there.  I've done this as I have some software that simply isn't available anymore installed so I really don't want to have to start with a clean Windows install as that would cause huge problems for me.

 

I've read a few things but I'm still struggling to get it to work.

 

1. I've read the enabling CMS could solve the problem but it appears that this cannot be done when using integrated graphics and, as the PC is going to used mainly for software development work, I've not specified a GPU.

2. Also read that if the drive has an MBR partition then that can cause problems but I've checked (using DiskGenius) and it shows it as GPT.

3. I've tried the SSD in question in all three SSD slots and confirm that it can be read (in a USB dock) on the PC that it was cloned on.

 

Having got so close to getting my first build up and running, I'm tearing my hair out trying to get it to boot to Windows.

 

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

 

John

[atarione]

cloned drives from a different system often don't work out super well trying to put them into a new machine... this has never been a supported operation for windows.    

 

Is secure boot on in the bios?

 

you may wanna take a look at this and try cloning it again (assuming you can boot from the cloned drive on the old computer?)  and try using sysprep to see if that can get this to work.

 

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/sysprep--generalize--a-windows-installation?view=windows-11

[johndon]

Thanks for the reply, Secure Boot is enabled in the BIOS but it is greyed out so I can't change it.

 

John

 

[Robchil]

1 hour ago, johndon said:

Thanks for the reply, Secure Boot is enabled in the BIOS but it is greyed out so I can't change it.

 

John

 

UEFI can block access from other hardware than original. 

do yourself a favour if it's a new mainboard, install it fresh on a m.2 nvme drive. that usually are 5-20 times faster than an old SSD, depending on what gen PCIE they are. 

disconnect all other drives during the install. 

 

 

 

[johndon]

The SSD i'm cloning to is a brand new, never used, PCIE Gen 4 m2 NVME drive and is the only drive connected in the new PC when I boot it up.

[Robchil]

39 minutes ago, johndon said:

The SSD i'm cloning to is a brand new, never used, PCIE Gen 4 m2 NVME drive and is the only drive connected in the new PC when I boot it up.

turn on legacy boot, and  it should boot up. 

 

EDIT: ah see you had it on CSM already. 

GPT should only works with UEFI boot. So you would have to set it to UEFI only. 

Secure boot is not needed for it to boot, and usually only possible with UEFI only enabled. 

 

if it was an old legacy system it should generaly be no problem cloning, but UEFI can be tricky, when cloning you have to clone the entire disk as you need the EFI, and recovery partitions too, If you for some reason don't have those it won't boot.

I would when starting with a new mainboard always recommend a fresh install on a blank disk, with only one drive installed, as windows likes to create itself and all it's partitions to make it run properly and have the partitions configured correctly. 

 

 

 

[johndon]

Thanks again, I tried Legacy but CSM can't be disabled apparently as I'm using onboard graphics rather than a dedicated GPU.

 

So, as it stands in the BIOS, I have:

 

Windows 10 Features: Windows 10

CSM Support: Disabled

Storage Boot Option Control: UEFI

Other PCI Devices: UEFI

 

If I enable CSM, I can change Other PCI Devices to Legacy but, as soon as I reboot, CSM is disabled again.

 

I'll try cloning again and making sure that all partitions are there.