the new tower

[mikev]

well it is still going . said windows error when it went to the black screen so i will give it the night to figure itself out then i will try to reinstall windows tomorrow

[Bizman]

At this point it's still easy to redo everything and start from scratch, learning from the mistakes of the first run and not install Norton and other unnecessary crap.

For the reinstall:
1) Install Windows on the SSD (remember to check BIOS for AHCI mode)
2) Install motherboard drivers + LiveUpdate
3) Install video card drivers
4) Check that Windows Defender and Firewall are on
5) Connect to the Internet and run LiveUpdate, install the updates.
5.1) Check the bios version, you might want to flash it for better compatibility with your CPU http://www.msi.com/support/mb/Z97-GAMING-5.html#down-bios. It looks like you could use LiveUpdate to do that. CAUTION: Update the bios separately after having rebooted to finalize the installation of other updates!
6) Install a good anti-virus program (not Norton or McAfee). Nod32 by Es4et has been said to have the least affect to gaming.
7) Install your gaming gear 
8) Install AH 
9) Play 

[Drane]

Caution updating bios - a lot of people have reported failures updating bios with liveupdate on MSI motherboards. Please google it and read about.

Also if you don't have an UPS battery backup, it's not a good idea to mess with the bios update in case the power glitches. You don't want to have a bricked motherboard.

Hold off on updating bios if it's not totally necessary.

Awesome build looks really cool. 

[mikev]

this is the weirdest thing . as my head was spinning as to what to do.i decided to reinstall windows .ok so i reload the optical drive for first boot  put the windows disc in .restarted .loads windows files the says starting windows then stops. lol i hit the reset button after 20 mins hit start windows normal and its magic it starts fine again. now the only issue i see is that my 1 t hard drive is not showing and everything i added so far is on the small drive . here is what i saw before the shutdown..
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now how do i get my hard drive working it shows up in the motherboard screen???
i wonder what is next as well . no more weird stuff

[mikev]

this is weird also the other drive appears in the device manager
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[Bizman]

There's viruses causing that screen to appear. The message itself is a regular Windows message, intended to be used by a company administrator to inform users about some maintenance routine. Try a clean reinstall.

I tried to find a nice tutorial but they do things differently than I've learned, so:

Unplug from the Internet, if you got a virus that soon it might have come through during the installation process if your modem doesn't have a firewall! Boot your computer from the DVD. Choose "Install Windows", then choose "Custom". When you see the list of hard disks and partitions, choose "Advanced". Delete all partitions! Then choose the SSD as the disk you want to install Windows on. From here on just follow the instructions on the screen.

Hint: You can even unplug the 1TB drive to prevent accidentally installing onto it.

As for the 1 TB  disk, if it shows during startup and in the bios, not to mention the Device Manager, it's there. Windows just doesn't know what to do with it. When you get Windows up and running, go to Disk Management to format it. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-format-hard-disk-partition#create-format-hard-disk-partition=windows-7

[mikev]

does this look like the drivers i need
http://www.msi.com/support/mb/Z97-GAMING-5.html/#down-driver&Win7 64

[Bizman]

That's the page. The same drivers or their previous versions are on the cd that came with the motherboard. But of course it never hurts to skip the CD and download the newest ones e.g. on a memory stick with another computer instead of first installing older versions. The driver repository should be cleaner that way.

[mikev]

oops i thought i had all the problems figured out but now i have the culprit. seems my new windows does not like my old external HDS  when i plug them in it goes back to the loading windows files thing again . when i unplug them and restart  windows works just fine . its got me wearing a hole in my head from scratching

[Bizman]

PM sent, but to help others suffering similar symptoms, one potential culprit is that USB hard disks are set before the SSD in the boot device order in bios. That can cause problems especially if there's another Windows installation on one of the disks. Changing the order and possibly disabling some devices in the list should help in such a case.

[mikev]

OK  these are just files of pictures videos and documents and music. most of it is data i save in case a recovery is needed. went into the bois page to switch around my start up devices and almost threw me into a oh shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeee eeettttttttt what did i do now. wish there was a video or something that would really explain to me what is what and what goes where . all i did was move my usb back away from the first boot and somehow changed the properties away from uf  something or other.

[Bizman]

Remember that there's the "Reset to factory defaults and reboot" option.

[mikev]

ahhhhhhhh the power of google search after all that  i never thought it was this easy .1 google search solved this issue . here it is

http://helpdeskgeek.com/help-desk/unable-to-boot-windows-with-external-hard-drive-attached/

 as you can see i now have 5 working  HD S yeaa


[/URL]

[Bizman]

Good find! Google is your friend, there's always someone having the same problems as you. 

As you noticed method 3 was what I suggested.

[mikev]

Good find! Google is your friend, there's always someone having the same problems as you. 

As you noticed method 3 was what I suggested.

yup what a relief , now we both learned something. i also loaded the updater for the motherboard so i can get fresh drivers that i NEED not the junk . there was 1 called killer ethernet  that i thought was junk   NOT lost my internet connection when i deleted that 1   hehehe . so far the temps are normal at 28 c the nice thing is all the cores are the same temp  within 1 or 2  degrees so the heatsink must of worked and the graphic card at 33 c so no over heating yet . i saw a video online that i will have to find again where you can raise the fan speed in the bios when it hits certain temps and make adjustments ..

thank you again for all you help  sure made this project go a lot smoother