ASUS Maximum XII can't boot to boot drive after Macrium restore

rboris said:

Relatively new computer: ASUS Maximum XII; i910900k; Sabrent Rocket boot NVMe. Windows 10 Professional all updates.

My Windows system, even with all anti-virus safeguards plus Malwarebytes, was hit with a virus. And the machine has acted flaky since (even though I removed the virus).

As usual I have regularly backed up my machine with Macrium.
I reset the machine with an image that pre-dated the virus. Thank you Macrium!!
To do that I had to enter the UEFI bios and reset some parameters such as secure boot to “Other OS” etc. (following an Asus advisory).

Problem began when I tried to reset the machine back to its previous state from the bios (Back to Windows from secure boot; turn CSM off; back to Sabrent as boot drive).

BUT NO GO.
No matter what I do, I am not booting to the Sabrent; the machine boots to the pre-bios choices and I have to press F! to enter the bios. Once in the bios I have to manually type the Sabrent under boot override settings. Then it boots.

So clearly Macrium did its job; the Sabrent is intact with the new image and I can manually boot to there.
But not automatically.
Please help!!
Thank you.

On the Macrium bootable media, there is a tool called: Fix Windows boot problems.
Run that tool.

Post back with the results.

Other info that may help...

You can use a program like Minitool Partition Wizard to see if your boot drive is GPT or MBR.

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

If the boot drive is MBR then CSM should be set to Legacy.
If the boot drive is GPT then CSM should be set to UEFI.

rboris said:

thank for the speedy reply.
i thought of that, of course.
but why can i boot the drive from the bios? I thought initially that boot partition was trashed, etc. But I think not.
I appreciate very much your suggestion.

Because your boot manager is messed up. That's what the Fix Windows boot problems tool is for.
If the tool is NOT needed (dosen't fix the issue), there will be no adverse effects from trying it.

rboris said:

i just tried to fix it and there was no change.
i am pretty sure that the bios settings are the source of the problem. But no matter how i configure the bios I can't boot from the NVMe.
again thanks.

@NavyLCDR


As for your BIOS settings... you'll have to tell us the exact model of your motherboard, so we can get the appropriate manual.
For example there's an ASUS Maximus XII Formula, a Hero, an Extreme... etc.

rboris said:

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII FORMULA LGA 1200 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XII FORMULA (WiFi 6) LGA 1200 Intel Z490 SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard

Before sending this message tried legacy and EFI, neither works.

I am sure that reset something that ought not to have been touched.


- - - Updated - - -

you're so impressive.
wow.

Assuming that NVMe is plugged into an M.2 port, then.... I would try this...
Try either UEFI only or UEFI and Legacy OPROM. Assuming that SSD is a GPT disk.





On the other hand... if the BIOS was at defaults before you changed those CSM settings... you could try setting it back to Defaults.


Open a command prompt as admin and run these commands one at a time...

Diskpart
List disk

Then post a screenshot.







/edit

The part I really don't understand is why you had to choose: "Other OS" to restore from a backup.
I've been using backup software on ASUS motherboards since 2003, and I've never had to do that.

I've never had to change ANY BIOS settings to restore from a backup.