Windows 10: Help with Legacy BIOS Boot setup and Windows 10 reinstall non-UEFI

I've been having constant problems with my new Sound BlasterX AE-5 soundcard not being consistently recognized at boot. It seems it is extremely similar to the issue that the older Sound Blaster Z cards had several years ago where they were not recognized on many, but not all, UEFI systems. The fix was to disable UEFI and boot in Legacy mode with CSM enabled. It sounds as if I'm going to need to delve into this myself, if I want to fix my sound card issues and not have to restart my computer four times every single time I boot from a shut-down state.

My main boot drive is a Samsung 850 EVO Series 500GB SSD, that is currently setup as GPT. I believe I need to convert it to MBR, then turn off Secure Boot and set my Maximus IX Hero up in Legacy Mode and reinstall Windows 10 in non-UEFI mode.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe I read that the Windows 10 install media creation tool creates bootable USB install drives that will boot with either UEFI or in Legacy mode. Can someone confirm that for me?

Is anyone willing to point me to any online resources that may help me in this endeavor or offer me some advice?

Thanks.

:)

 

how to stop booting from windows boot manager windows 10

Sorry if I wasn't clear.:

In UEFI the Windows Boot Manager must always be first in Boot Priority because it alone boots Windows.

This is unlike Legacy BIOS where the hard drive is what is set first to boot itself.

So if you wanted to boot a hard drive via the BIOS Boot menu as was recommended in Legacy BIOS to have least complications, you'd need to enable CSM or Legacy BIOS in UEFI Setup, boot the media as a non-UEFI Legacy flash stick or DVD, delete all partitions
to clear the formatting and then install Legacy to MBR format. This would then make that hard drive bootable via BIOS Boot menu key.

Hope that's clearer.

 

Getting into bios

If you don't see UEFI in Advanced Startup Options Menu, than you probably have Legacy Bios. That is what I have and I do not have the UEFI menu option in ASOM.

I looked up legacy bios and when I had to reinstall windows 10 for the first time there was no option on how to boot bios listed

and it has to do with using a flash drive

BIOS: To prevent Windows Setup or Windows PE from booting in UEFI mode, remove the efi folder
on the root of the media.

 

Changing from uefi to legacy bios is unlikely to solve your issue if it is a driver or hardware related issue.

Try this first.

Disable Fast Startup from Power menus.

This forces a full boot up each time you boot pc.

 

Thanks for the input. I've already tried that. As a matter of fact, I disabled Fast Boot and increased my Post Boot Delay Time from 3 to 10 seconds because someone thought my computer may be booting too fast for the card to properly initialize. It makes no difference whatsoever. I've gone the whole gamut of tech support with Creative and with ASUS and I just got my motherboard back from an ASUS RMA; no problem found.

While I am not 100% certain that this will fix my problem, I am certain that I've ready no less than fifty accounts from individuals with the previous generation of Sound Blaster Z cards that experienced the same exact symptoms that I'm experiencing and that, at the behest of Creative tech support, they switched from UEFI to Legacy Boot, and never again experienced the problem of their sound card not being properly recognized at boot once they did. I believe the new Sound BlasterX is based on a modified/improved version of the same sound core, though obviously not improved enough to have fixed this issue.

As far as I can tell, I'm all out of options other than trying this, and as big a pain as it will be to try, I'd much rather do that than to continue to have to restart my computer four times every time I boot from a shut-down condition to get my sound to work properly, which is what it takes now.

If you have some other things to try, I'd certainly be willing, but I've probably already tried them to no success. You never know though, you may have the one thing I haven't tried that will fix it.

Thanks again.