My PC Won't Boot Without The HDD (in UEFI)

Logan Snyder

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
27
0
10,530
Hello, I'd like to describe a problem I'm currently experiencing, and hope one of you can solve it. I know you most likely thought of a very simple answer to the problem when you initially read the title. You probably thought boot info is stored on the HDD and, therefor, the PC can't boot without it. Well, that's what I initially thought as well, there's just one little detail that makes this a little more complicated: When my HDD is disconnected from my PC entirely, physically outside of the case, sitting on my desk, doing nothing, I can boot with only my SSD.

The odd part is, if I completely disable the HDD in UEFI, and have only my SSD set as boot, the machine simply won't boot into the OS. To me, this makes no logical sense. The drive can be disconnected from the machine entirely, and I can boot just fine. But, if the drive is connected, and it's not set for the boot order (#2) in UEFI, I can't boot. Due to the fact that I CAN boot without it, I don't think I have precious boot information on it.

Some more information, if needed. The system I'm using now was initially just running on the HDD. I formatted it during Windows 7 setup. Then re-started the set-up process with only the SSD installed after the HDD was formatted. Windows automatically created an E: drive when I was done with setup, that originally just had a short-cut to the F: drive (the HDD). But, I've formatted the HDD once again (outside of setup, in Windows, by right-clicking the drive and selecting format), as well as the E: drive (same way). After I formatted the E: drive, it was gone from Windows Explorer, but showed up again on a re-boot, but with nothing in it. Also, my PC takes about 32 seconds to boot, where as most SSD boot machines take about 10 - 15 seconds. I initially thought this was because my HDD was slowing down boot, but it doesn't make any sense if I can boot without my HDD, it takes the same time without it. It's not a bad SSD either, I know of someone with a lower end HDD that boots with his in about 10 seconds.

Here's a screenshot of my disk management, if needed:
http://i.imgur.com/MxxBkFo.png?1

I'm not sure why a blank partition exists, above the C: drive, but it's there.
 

Logan Snyder

Honorable
Jul 16, 2013
27
0
10,530
Update: Got it working. I put the SSD in SATA port 1, HDD in SATA port 2, and ODD in SATA port 3, now I can disable everything but the SSD in BIOS and have it boot.

There's still a problem though. When I turn on my PC, I can hear the HDD spinning up. Also, if you need more information, I can randomly hear my HDD turn on while in Windows. Shouldn't it be running all the time?

Also, I get an abnormally long boot time, as always. Still about 30s...

Also, if you want some pictures of my boot settings, here they are (sorry they're not screenshots, I don't even know if it's possible to take screenshots of the UEFI)

http://i.imgur.com/TICKKGx.jpg?1
http://i.imgur.com/3gMwB90.jpg?1