Weird Boot Problem - Win 7 and SSD

[aleader]

Installed a new ASRock H81M DGS R2.0 with a new 128GB Kingston SSD that I wanted to put the system on and boot from. I also have a 7200RPM WD 1TB Blue HD as a storage drive. It was in my old system (as storage) and had some files on it, but I wasn't booting from it before. Both are on SATA 3. I put my old(ish) copy of Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit) on it, obviously fresh install.

Went into the BIOS and at first it wouldn't recognize the SSD until I went into the storage section and changed it from HDD to Solid State. This is my first experience with a SSD.

So I booted from the Win CD and picked the SSD (it showed a single partition, unallocated) and proceeded to install Windows on it. On restart error messages came, so I changed the boot sequence, however the SSD didn't show up in the list of bootable devices until I went into the BBS folder and selected it under AHCI.

So I reboot and get an error again. Change the boot to the WD HD and a menu comes up with the selectable options 'Windows 7' or 'Windows 7 Home Premium.' The only option that works is the Windows 7 one. It then boots to Windows normally and obviously from the SSD as it only takes about 10 secs, but it won't boot if I select the SSD as the first boot. When I go into My Computer it shows Windows 7 Home Premium. Only way I can get it to boot is by pressing F11 for the boot menu and selecting the WD HD to boot, then I get the menu.

I go into disk management. At first my WD HD wasn't even in there and didn't show up in Explorer, but it showed as working normally in device manager. I assigned a drive letter to it (F) and there it was. I see now that the WD HD is assigned '0', Healthy, Active, System, Primary Partition. The SSD (C) is '1', Healthy, Boot, Crash Dump, Page File, Primary Partition. Windows is installed on the SSD from what I can see.

It's a UEFI BIOS and I think either something in there is setup wrong, or having that WD HD in there screwed something up. The HD shows 'System' and the SSD 'boot'. The SSD also didn't show 'Active' so I right-clicked on it and changed it to Active, although I'm not sure that did anything.

I'd like to format that WD HD but I'm concerned as it shows it as the system drive. Any ideas?

 

[aleader]

Update for those who are interested. Pulled the WD drive out completely and ran the Windows repair tool which installed an MBR on the SSD and everything works fine now. Hooked the WD back up and I am formatting it now. Not sure how the WD got to be the system drive.

 

[master_shake_]

windows 7 does a really cool trick where it puts your mbr on the drive that you don't want to install windows to.

it also formats it just for fun.

 

[Yuriman]

windows 7 does a really cool trick where it puts your mbr on the drive that you don't want to install windows to.

it also formats it just for fun.

Yep, just realized yesterday my MBR was on my USB external hard drive, which hasn't been disconnected since I last formatted. I removed the drive and couldn't figure out while my PC wasn't booting.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hey there aleader

Glad you've figured it out and resolved the issue.

A small note from me. When you are doing a fresh install it is strongly recommended that you don't have any other storage devices connected to your system as the installer might put some of the system files or other important things on them rather than the desired boot device (in your case the SSD).

You should be able to simply assign a letter to the WD Blue and continue using it. Since you are reusing an older drive I would recommend doing a diagnostic check to ensure the drive is still fully healthy. This is always recommended when you are reusing an old drive on a new system. For the WD Blue I would recommend simply running WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic and see if the drive passes both the quick and the extended tests. This should be enough to rule the drive as healthy or not. Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=T8amV0

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions

Captain_WD.

 

[aleader]

Hey there aleader

Glad you've figured it out and resolved the issue.

A small note from me. When you are doing a fresh install it is strongly recommended that you don't have any other storage devices connected to your system as the installer might put some of the system files or other important things on them rather than the desired boot device (in your case the SSD).

You should be able to simply assign a letter to the WD Blue and continue using it. Since you are reusing an older drive I would recommend doing a diagnostic check to ensure the drive is still fully healthy. This is always recommended when you are reusing an old drive on a new system. For the WD Blue I would recommend simply running WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic and see if the drive passes both the quick and the extended tests. This should be enough to rule the drive as healthy or not. Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=T8amV0

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions

Captain_WD.

Lesson learned The WD drive I was using was really never used in my OLD system (to give you an idea how old: Athlon XP 4000+, 320MB Geforce 8800GTS, DFI LanParty NT4, 3GB DDR400 RAM). Great system. Has been gathering dust for a few years as I have a better laptop. The WD HD was an add-on a few years ago, but then I had some issue with the main 250GB Seagate drive and/or Windows became corrupted and/or the MB is bad. Haven't figured that out yet. My suspicion is a corrupt Windows or the HD. I can't imagine the Lanparty board being the culprit. In any event, it was time for an upgrade

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Good old times (remembering my 9800GT and 2GB RAM).
You can get the problematic HDD and plug it in another system internally or externally and see what its S.M.A.R.T. status would show you. Running chkdsk /r from the cmd can also isolate any bad sectors and prolong the drive's life a bit.

Captain_WD.

 

[sm625]

You should only have one drive connected when you install windows.

 

[mikeymikec]

You should only have one drive connected when you install windows.

I assume that if one installs Windows from a USB mass storage device, Windows isn't stupid enough to install the MBR on it?

- edit - That question sounds really dumb Though are there any precautions that one should take if installing from USB?

 

[vailr]

I assume that if one installs Windows from a USB mass storage device, Windows isn't stupid enough to install the MBR on it?

- edit - That question sounds really dumb Though are there any precautions that one should take if installing from USB?

The USB drive format must match the bios setting: MBR vs. GPT.
If you try and use an MBR formatted USB Windows installation thumb drive on a system set up in bios for UEFI-GPT, it won't work.
Use Rufus (free software) for creating the bootable Windows installation thumb drive, which allows for selecting either MBR or GPT.
However: a burned DVD installation disc (Windows 10) should work in either MBR or GPT mode.
Note: can't confirm, because haven't tried the burned disc method.

 

[aleader]

I do want to test that drive. I assume it's just best to do it through Windows disk mgmt? On the subject of UEFI (which is new to me), what is the benefit of it? Does it allow you to boot without a CD/USB?

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

You can think of UEFI as a new and improved version of BIOS. Some useful improvements include remote diagnostics and repair of computers in some cases even without the need of another OS . It also offers features for faster and more secure booting, GPT partitioning style (which gives you access to 2TB+ drives) and more. I believe this would give you more info if you are interested, I find it pretty educational: http://superuser.com/questions/496026/what-is-the-difference-in-boot-with-bios-and-boot-with-uefi

Cheers!

Captain_WD.

 

[aleader]

Update in case anyone's interested. Tested the Seagate HD with Seatools and it failed the 'Short Drive Self Test' and Long Generic' tests. I used windows to fix the bad sectors...it found 149 bad clusters(?). Is this drive still usable in some capacity or should I toss it? It's a 7200 SATA drive, so I'd like to keep it if I can, but it's old and out of warranty.