[mdlug] PC Doesn't boot after moving the box

[Nicholas Cosens]

I have a similar issue, yet different. I too have a MSI motherboard, and 
when any USB storage device with a malformed or missing boot sector 
(example: my external 6TB usb hard drive, or a basic non-bootable 16 GB 
thumb drive) is plugged in at boot, my computer will hang at POST. It 
never makes it far enough for BIOS to start. If the thumb drive has been 
formatted as bootable media, such as a live Ubuntu or Arch linux iso, 
then everything works as expected.

I "had" another similar issue last winter when I installed a new 
graphics card. The card was so new, and my motherboard so old, that the 
BIOS firmware did not recognize the graphics card, and I had to call MSI 
tech support for assistance determining which BIOS firmware version to 
flash.


Since you have an MSI motherboard, I recommend putting everything back 
the way it was before the new hardware. Or even slimmed down to the bare 
essentials as others have mentioned. If you are able to boot, then it is 
definitely the new hard drive, and perhaps a similar issue to mine 
(though I doubt it as you are using SATA2 or 3?). Either way, most MSI 
motherboards display a 2 digit alphanumeric somewhere on the screen 
during POST (mine is in the bottom right). This is a state or error 
code. If you are able to see which one displays when it hangs, 
excellent! You will be able to call MSI and describe your issue, 
motherboard model, and tell them the error code. (Good luck finding a 
useful list online somewhere otherwise). They should be able to tell you 
what that code means so you can resolve the issue.


Good luck.


--

Nicholas Cosens

https://discord.gg/discord-linux


> Recently I put a second hard disk in my tower I plugged everything in to
> make sure it worked as I expected to and then when the test was successful,
> I plugged everything else in (additional monitors etc. and   put it back
> int eh case where it goes and now when I go to bott I don't get past the
> opening AMD logo screen on boot.
>
> I suspect something got joggled loose when I moved the tower but everything
> looks ok to me (lots of cables not plugged into everything but I'm pretty
> sure that is how it was before.
>
> With such a symptom, where do I start? I'm hoping I didn't fry a
> motherboard or something.
> Jim Fulner
> National platform representative, Libertarian Party of Michigan
> 22100 Armada Ridge Rd.,
> Armada, MI 48005