Z87E-ITX boot screen frozen after mSATA partition

Jessie wrote: [URL=][/URL][URL=][/URL]I have a Z87E-ITX that I am using with a Msata drive (Kingston SMS200S3/30G). It was working perfectly until today when I tried to change the Msata drive partition. I haven't changed anything from a hardware perspective (I just boot on a USB stick to partition the Msata drive). Now I cannot go past the BIOS Splash screen, it is frozen. I tried CMOS reset, disconnecting everything (even the RAM) and update BIOS to the latest version (2.5). The BIOS Splash screen remains frozen, except when the Msata drive is connected. The Msata drive was working perfectly before the partition, so I am not sure that it is the culprit. I don't have a spare motherboard to test this Msata drive, so it seems that the next step can only be to RMA the Msata drive and see what happen. Has somebody a better idea ?

You did not say if the PC will boot with the mSATA drive removed from the board, so I can only assume that it doesn't boot at all now.

Your description is confusing, you said you think the mSATA drive has a problem, but the flash screen is frozen if the mSATA drive is connected.

If you remove the mSATA drive, does the PC boot?

I'll describe what I think is happening, but I'm really not sure this is the situation.

When you installed your OS (unknown, is that Windows?), was the mSATA drive connected to the board? Meaning both the OS drive and the mSATA drive were working when you installed your OS?

If that is correct, and you are using Windows, from your description of the problem it sounds like you were caught by a thing that the Windows installation program does.

If there was another drive connected to the board besides the target OS drive when you installed Windows, then Windows will put the System/Boot partition on the other drive, not the target OS drive. That means your PC depends upon both drives to boot Windows.

If the other drive is then formatted again as you said you did to the mSATA drive, then the System/Boot partition that was on the mSATA drive was removed, and Windows will no longer boot.

Can you get into the BIOS, and check the boot order?

If what I described is correct, you can fix your OS installation by booting from your Windows installation media (disk, USB flash drive) and select Repair. That will normally put the System/Boot partition where it belongs, on the OS drive.

Jessie wrote: Windows was installed on the mSATA drive. No other hard drive were connected. If the mSATA drive is connected, I cannot do anything as I am stuck on the BIOS splash screen. Especially not booting on my USB stick (systemrescuecd) or a hard drive. So the problem is not booting. Without the mSATA drive, I can boot on whatever I want and do whatever I want. But as soon as I connected back the mSATA drive, the motherboard is stuck on the BIOS splash screen (so I cannot reformat/repartition the mSATA drive). I've also tried with activating/deactivating UEFI (through CSM compatiblity) and switching AHCI/IDE. But no improvement. I've tried changing the boot order, but it doesn't have any effect. As soon as the mSATA drive is connected, the BIOS is frozen. Any other idea ? Thanks

It seems you ruined something on the mSATA drive (that we now know was an OS drive) when you tried to "... change the mSATA drive partition".

You'll need to describe what change the partition means. It now sounds like you have remnants of an OS installation on the mSATA drive that Windows uses to attempt to boot, but it fails. But that is only one possibility. Whatever happened from changing the partition, the Windows installation seems to be corrupted.

If the mSATA drive was quick formatted, or cleaned using the diskpart command, and still acted as you describe, then my guess would be that drive failed for some reason.

If you can boot from your Windows installation media, with only the mSATA drive in the PC, try to repair it. If that fails, your only other option is deleting the remaining partitions, and then use it for whatever you need.