Windows 11 Pro Overwrite Problem

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wrshamblinj153002d6

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Hello. I purchased a MSI Mag B860 Tomahawk Wifi motherboard from Newegg a couple of weeks ago. I am using an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU, an MSI MPG A1000GS PCIE5 PSU, a Samsung 4TB 9100 Pro with Heatsink, and two G.SKILL Trident Z5 RGB Series DDR5 RAM sticks (F5-7600J3646G16GX2-TZ5RK). The initial installation of the motherboard and Windows 11 Pro went smoothly with no problems. However, I was having some instability issues with the MSI drivers I was using, and decided I wanted to start off with a fresh install. I used Microsoft's Media Creation Tool to create a bootable USB drive for the installation and wiped the drive with the Secure Erase feature in the BIOS.
However, when I rebooted to use the USB drive, all that comes up is the BIOS screen. I tried another USB drive and got the same results. For some reason, the motherboard will not let me boot anything other than the original installation of Windows 11 Pro, which unfortunately is gone. I tried turning off Secure Boot in the BIOS and changing the boot order to the USB drive to be the default boot device. I got the same results. All that comes up now is the BIOS screen. Is there some security feature with this motherboard that will only allow you one installation of Windows 11 Pro? Thanks in advance.
 
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wrshamblinj153002d6 said:
owever, I was having some instability issues with the MSI drivers I was using, and decided I wanted to start off with a fresh install.
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Instability is rarely a driver problem, often times it's a low-level problem which you have to diagnose. For example your RAM kit sticks out, quite an enthusiast-grade speed, so there's no guarantee that it's stable. If it's such a low-level problem, then you could install Windows a hundred times over and still not resolve it. A BIOS update can often help to bring stability in certain cases, so you should make sure you're on the latest version from https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B860-TOMAHAWK-WIFI/support

So, if you're on any version older than the current one (7E39v1B90), update to that. Then, as for Secure Boot, don't bother disabling that, a Secure Boot issue looks different, you won't go into the BIOS then. Also, no use changing the boot drive, because in a UEFI BIOS, the drive isn't what's booted, instead it boots the bootloader (Windows Boot Manager), it's in a different menu.

But you don't actually change the boot order in the BIOS, you press F11 to bring up the boot menu. And there you should be able to select the USB drive you prepared.

So, to recap: Update BIOS (or if you're already on the latest one, turn off the PC and press the Clear CMOS button on the rear I/O). Then, leave everything at default settings, and press F11 to enter the boot menu instead of the BIOS. Note, the first boot after a BIOS update or a Clear CMOS will take a bit longer.

Lastly, about the Secure Erase thing, that's only necessary if you want to sell the drive. If you just want to do a fresh install of Windows, once you get to the screen where you can select the target drive for it, you can delete all the partitions on the SSD and then just press Continue. That will start from a clean slate.
 
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