This is a fun one!
You get a new motherboard with an Intel 500 Series chipset. You decide to just use the integrated graphics in the CPU, but you can’t boot!
It turns out your actual boot drive is missing from the Boot options menu. Gonzerooni!
WTH?!
UPDATE Nov 2023: Watch the video instead!
The Problem
I recently experienced this problem on a Z590-based motherboard.
This is what I saw (top) and what I should have seen (bottom):
No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the new motherboard to see the mirrored linux boot drives…
What gives?
The Solution
It’s pretty simple. The Asus support page includes the following note:
Why does the CSM option under BIOS appear gray and non-configurable?
Which says:
1. Q: When I use the integrated graphics card on the Intel® 500 series motherboard , why does the CSM option under BIOS appear gray and non-configurable?
A: The Intel® 500 series chipset does not support UEFI VBIOS graphic card, hence the integrated graphics mode does not support legacy boot and CSM option becomes non-configurable
2. Q: How can I configure CSM normally?
A: You can use a discrete graphics card that supports UEFI VBIOS to make CSM option configurable
In other words, Intel decided not to support integrated graphics that boot the old MBR/BIOS way with their newer chipsets.
Your only option is to use the GPT/UEFI way of booting – if you want to use the integrated graphics.
If you don’t know the difference, check out my explanation of BIOS vs. UEFI and MBR vs. GPT here: Convert your Windows 10 boot drive from MBR to GPT
So, either you convert from MBR to GPT (see link above), or you have to install a dedicated graphics card. Note that an older VBIOS graphics card will work just fine!
After you do one or the other, POOF…
CSM will be enable-able again, and your MBR boot drive will once again appear in the Boot menu!
Thank you so darn much. I was going crazy wondering why I couldn’t boot off my SSD, cloned to an m.2 and still had the same issue. Didn’t even think this was going to be the problem. Thanks for the excellent walkthroughs!
I thought I was going crazy. You’d think they would mention this in the motherboard manual since it’s kind of important…
Thank you for this post. It really clears up a lot of problems for which no one had a solution. This should have been mentioned in the motherboard manual.
can’t thank you enough. But, I keep getting a bios error, blue screen when I try to boot windows 7 or the windows 7 repair / install disk. I had a crash and would like to rebuild the system as it was before updating to 10.
What’s the BIOS error?
Dude- I have spent SO LONG trying to figure this out. Thank you.
Crazy how nobody mentions this. Not the box. Not the manual. Not asus support.
Hi, thanks for the heads up, you saved me hours of fault finding!
I encountered exactly the same problem when trying to do a clean install of Windows 10 with my new ASUS Z590-Plus motherboard using an Intel Core i9-11900 CPU, that has integrated graphics.
Luckily I had an old graphics card that I could install, so I was able to see the USB memory as a bootable volume. After the installation I removed the graphics card and used the Intel integrated graphics. The CSM was then grayed out in the BIOS setup.
Note that the Windows 10 bootable USB devices are currently MBR when created using the Microsoft Microsoft Media Creation Tool.
I agree that this should be mentioned in the motherboard manual.
Are you freaking KIDDING ME?!?!? I have to have a discrete GPU just to be able to BOOT FROM A USB STICK?
This is the WORST design element ever in a motherboard! WTH were they thinking on this one???
I have 2 MBs I’m trying to work with (NetBSD). The other of them doesn’t present recognizable USB hubs, and while it will boot an installer from USB, it won’t let me access the USB (or the other USB drive) to migrate my existing system’s data onto the new one in order to minimize the required downtime.
And then there’s this one, which also is having the effect of booting up into a POST, but if I change anything, it oscillates thrice and fails me back into the BIOS
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. I mean, I know they’re just trying to push everything towards full UEFI, but that’s really not the way to do it.
Wow! I said, “What the what?!” I spent hours troubleshooting this same issue with the same MOBO. Called support and they couldn’t help! I was ready to ship this board back! Thanks for this!
Hi @scottie ,
i couldn’t able to Enable the CSM under Boot menu. By default launch CSM in “Disable Mode”…
To make CSM enable i tried the following ;
1) Disabled – XCHI Hand – off ->> under —–> Advanced menu—> USB configuration
2) Disabled – Fast Boot —>>under Boot Menu —–> Boot configuration
3) Custom mode — secure Boot Mode ->> under Boot Menu
even if i did the above procedure, i am not able to Enable the CSM ..
can you please help me on above issue…
It stays disabled even with a dedicated graphics card installed?
Scottie, thank you so much for your answer. Love to know how you arrived at the solution. I’ve been all over the BIOS for the last 5 weeks since the new ASUS Prime h570-Plus arrived; and, all over the web reading and watching videos with no help. I was beginning to make myself believe it was a faulty board. You’re the goods!
Absolutely amazingly useful bit of information. I’d been to people who were supposed computer experts to try to solve this issue and even they weren’t aware of this. I’m a Linux user (and also ‘play’ on a second system – this new one) and it will no doubt go a long way to helping me out. Anything ‘new’ is a pain with Linux, but in Australia about the only stuff you can buy IS ‘new’.
Scottie thanks for the solution and taking your time to post it. Been driving me nuts for a week now.
Update for Windows 10/11 installation, with regard to the problems identified above.
Annoyingly the Microsoft Media Creation Tool for Windows 10/11 automatically formats the USB boot drive to the Partition style: Master Boot Record (MBR), viewed in Device Properties, Volume tab. This occurs even if the drive has been pre-formatted to Partition style: GUID Partition Table (GPT).
Therefore the USB drive must be converted to a GPT partition table using the diskpart command. First copy the Windows 11 installation files on the USB media to another folder on your PC and then convert the USB drive to GPT. Copy the installation files back to the USB drive after the conversion.
Conversion procedure and as above:
1. Back up data on the MBR disk that you want to convert into a GPT disk.
2. Open an elevated command prompt by right-clicking Command Prompt and then choosing Run as Administrator.
3. Type diskpart. If the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes, skip to step 6.
4. At the DISKPART prompt, type list disk. Note the disk number you want to convert.
5. At the DISKPART prompt, type select disk .
6. At the DISKPART prompt, type clean. Note: Running the clean command will delete all partitions or volumes on the disk.
7. At the DISKPART prompt, type convert gpt.
The Windows 10/11 Microsoft Media Creation Tool should have the option of being able to select a Partition style: GUID Partition Table (GPT).
Hope this helps.
Thanks to Scottie for hosting this forum obviously you have helped save a lot of time wasting with this problem!
Forgot to add that a primary partition needs to be created and formatted on the USB media after the conversion to GPT.
1. Back up or move the data on the basic MBR disk you want to convert into a GPT disk.
2. Open an elevated command prompt by right-clicking Command Prompt and then choosing Run as Administrator. Windows PowerShell (Admin)
3. Type: diskpart If the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes, skip to step 6.
4. At the DISKPART prompt, type: list disk Note the disk number you want to convert.
5. At the DISKPART prompt, type: select disk for example, select disk 2
6. At the DISKPART prompt, type: clean Note: The clean command will delete all partitions or volumes on the disk.
7. At the DISKPART prompt, type: convert gpt Confirm that the conversion was successful.
8. At the DISKPART prompt, type: select disk for example, select disk 2
9. At the prompt, type: create partition primary Confirm that the partition has been created.
10. Format the drive through Windows or using the DISKPART command (format quick fs=ntfs)
THANK YOU. I have no doubt I would’ve spent half a day figuring out why I feel like I’m going crazy. Trying to build a mining rig and Hive OS doesn’t flash as a bootable UEFI device and my mobo wouldn’t allow me to use legacy for a reason I couldn’t figure out.
Thanks again.
Very interesting indeed! I suspect this is why I can only get Xubuntu 20.04, Linux Mint 19.3, and Linux Mint 20.1 to run in compatiblilty mode when using a usb flash drive, and when I had Mint 20.1 installed to a SSD. When run in normal mode an error message would flash on the screen & then the screen would go blank.
I had no problems installing W10 from a flash drive. And Clonezilla when run from a DVD works flawlessly for backup and restore of W10.
This is with an Asus H510 board.
Hello!
I want to say huge thanks to this thread and to the problem solver/thread starter because I was also stuck at building computer and then tried to get the old hard disks visible in bios and to boot. My setup was Asus Prime Z590M-PLUS motherboard and Intel Core i5-11600K with RTX2060 graphics card. First I didn´t get the graphics to show up in monitor etc and then I REMOVED the card and tried to mess with bios. And voila, CSM was greyed out and also the boot option priorities and boot override were also grey. The disks however were always in the bios start page list! I was really confused and didn´t know what to do anymore. I tried to change sata cables order and disconnected DVD and old sata-disk. My main SSDs are normal 2,5″ Samsung and Kingston so not M2-models. First I thought it might be with nvme bios settings or bios driver disturbing the boot order. I was ready to give up and return the motherboard!
Luckily I came here and find the solution. Thanks a lot and all the best!!!
This article was a lifesaver.
I have a system with an Intel 570 chip and Windows 10 running in BIOS mode because of the old graphics card. I’d like to convert the system to UEFI and use the graphics built into my gen 11 processor. If I convert my M2 C: drive from MBR to GPT then remove the old graphics card will Windows boot from C: and fix itself to work in UEFI mode? Are there other steps involved?
The only thing you should need to do is go into the BIOS on boot and change the boot method to UEFI. Normally, Windows will be perfectly happy and fire right up. There may also be a BIOS setting for “Other OS” or “Windows UEFI Mode”, so you’d want to pick the Windows UEFI one.
Hi.
I have Asus Prime Z590M motherboard and Intel Core i7-11700K and GTX1060. But then launch PC I didn´t get the graphics to show up in monitor. Please help, more details, what i need to do to resolve this problem?
When the GTX1060 is installed, can you enable CSM in the BIOS? If so, set it to ‘Auto’ first. That’s all I had to do (aside from connecting the screen to the graphics card instead of the motherboard).
Oh! I almost forgot: I DID have another problem with getting a Z690 board to recognize a GTX1050 graphics card. I had to reboot several times. The first 2-3 times, I would get a ‘3-beep’ error, which according to the user manual means that the video card isn’t recognized. A BIOS upgrade from the Asus web site seems to have fixed that issue.
i have found this solution and works great, please check this video
In reference to Anthony’s procedure for changing a USB drive from MBR to GPT: you can do this non-destructively with Partition Wizard. There’s no need to delete everything on the disk.
Also, does this apply to all brands with Intel 5xx/6xx chipsets? I have only heard of this being an issue with Asus.
Apparently it’s an Intel thing, but I haven’t been able to confirm that on non-Asus boards.
Yes, It does it for me on AsRock & MSI Motherboards too. Same problem; legacy Bios cannot be activated.
CSM cannot be enabled with integrated graphics on Intel i3 or i5.
No similar problem encounters with AMD Athelon chip containing integrated graphics; mounted on AsRock motherboard. Legacy Bios shows & boot priority options are provided; not just only the Windows boot manager.
Simplemente GENIAL!!! MUCHAS GRACIAS !!!
Wow! You saved my night!
I was breaking my teeth finding a solution for this issue.
Install Win 7
I thank you too for this Post. It has explained me why I couldn’t.
I’ve a Asus PRIME B660-PLUS D4 so,
How can Install Windows 7?
Thanks
I have a Gigabyte GIGABYTE B660M DS3H , DDR4, Dual M.2, PCIe 4.0,2.5GB LAN, USB 3.2, USB C motherboard with 128 GB of DDR4 RAM. the CPU Intel Core i9-12900k Alder Lake 3.2GHz (5.2GHz Turbo) 16-Core
The Bios is version F6b.
I have been trying to set the CSM to enabled but it just doesn’t work. I will try out adding a graphics card that I have and try it again and see what happens. I will post the results here once I see success…
Thanks,
Asim
I experienced the same with the h510 chipset motherboard, actually the system is legacy boot, but there is no image, if you insert an external card, you get an image, I have already installed an ssd with legacy win7 installation, even it does not show the image, only on the usb memory. In short, an external card is needed to install any legacy with this chipset. no problem with h410 motherboard with same pentium g6400 cpu
Thank you! 🙂
Hello sir thanks for You valuable information, i noticed that this is the issue right now with My computer. My question is if My legacy HDD was used under the MBR mode, if I change it somehow to GPT Will it now show on the bootable options of my motherboard? Thank You very much
If you convert it to GPT, yes, it should show up again as a bootable drive.
As always, lack of information. Now, I have two options: throw my Z790-P away, or more money on a graphics card.
Thank you very much, Intel, Asus. Now, I know that you are not to be trusted.
I had this issue recently, but my BIOSTAR B760 mainboard let me configure CSM/UEFI for storage/video/network/etc. separately.
So I could run storage in CSM-mode and video in UEFI-mode.
Works fine and it looks like I had luck with this mainboard, when Asus/Gigabyte/MSI does not support this.
Hoy es 29 de mayo del 2023, leí tu artículo y los de Asus no habilitan el CSM en una b650, lo peor es q la tarjeta es mucho inferior a la gráfica integrada del ryzen 7, pruebo con lo de cambiar el arranque
Thank you sir. I have been losing my mind wondering how this option had been previously available and then at some stage disappeared. Reinstalled graphics card, enabled CSM and then bootable drive recognised. Thank you so much. This was day 4 of attempting to get PC to boot and when my wife asked me if I needed anything I said an axe :-) you saved me from crazy. Fyi Asus z690-e 12700k