Hardware:

• Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK WIFI (MS-7D91)
• CPU: Intel i9-14900KF
• RAM: 64 GB DDR5
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Ti
• Disk: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB (SATA), Corsair MP600 NVMe
• Chipset: Intel Raptor Lake (Z790)

Controllers:

• Intel Raptor Lake SATA AHCI Controller [8086:7a62]
• Intel Raptor Lake USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 XHCI Host Controller [8086:7a60]
• Intel Ethernet Controller I226-V [8086:125c]

Issue:
Upgrading from linux-image-6.12.38+kali-amd64 to linux-image-6.16.8+kali-amd64 causes boot failure.

Symptoms on 6.16.8:

• Boot log shows:
  ahci ... failed to start port (errno=-12)
  xhci_hcd 0000:00:14.0: init failed, error -12
• Dropped to initramfs, but USB keyboard not working at that point.
• GRUB menu still works (disk visible to firmware).
• System is unbootable with 6.16.8.

Workaround:

• Booting into older kernel 6.12.38+kali-amd64 works fine on the same hardware.
• Verified disk is healthy (SMART and fsck clean).
• Issue is 100% reproducible.

Conclusion:
This looks like a regression in the kernel between 6.12 and 6.16, affecting Raptor Lake SATA/USB initialization.

Please advise if additional logs (dmesg with debug, journalctl, etc.) would be useful.