Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

BIOS Boot Order won't find correct HDD. (Gigabyte GA-Z77x-UD3H / AMI F7 BIOS)

Tags:
  • Motherboards
  • BIOS
  • Boot
  • Hard Drives
  • Gigabyte
September 17, 2014 2:32:53 PM

Problem / Questions:
Multiple HDDs. Desired OS is Win 7 Pro, with MBR on Disk0. Suddenly, Disk0 is not found during boot, and is not shown as an option on the BIOS Boot Order screen. But, F12 during the boot shows the Boot menu, and Disk0 IS shown, allowing me to manually select it ("this boot only") and successfully boot Win 7.
1) How is it possible for the BIOS to know about Disk0 on F12, but not on the Boot Order screen?
2) Why would Boot Order suddenly change from previously correct operation?
3) What can I do to fix this?
4) Is this an instability that would affect future install of a SSD?

Background:
Running fine for 2+ years. The Win boot (post BIOS) now shows multiple OS options (Win 7 Pro / "recovery"; two versions of Win Vista, and an unidentified "recovery" OS.) None of the OS options are associated with the proper "drive" - I should see Win 7 Pro on the C: drive but it's not. Going into the BIOS boot order menu, the correct HDD (Disk0 / Partition 0) is not shown at all - just CD/DVD, USB, and an old HDD where the Vista instances are stored. I can manually enter the BIOS with F12 during the boot sequence, which shows the HDD with Win 7, select it, and then the PC boots correctly. However, this presents problems when the PC has to restart on its own (e.g. after a S/W load, CHKDSK, etc.) and I'm not there to do it manually.

Config Info:
1) CPU is Intel Core i5-3570K, not overclocked. 8 GB RAM. Nvidia GeForce GT240 video card. Audio from mobo. Diagnostics show no problems.
2) I have 3 HDDs, with several partitions:
a) Disk 0 / Part 0 (Seagate 1TB) has the boot record and OS for Win 7 Pro.
b) Disk 1 (also Seagate 1 TB) is only used for backup.
c) Disk 2 is an old WD drive (320 GB) I installed shortly after original setup, only to retrieve various archived data from old PC, and has 2 partitions each with bootable Win Vista. (If all else fails, I'll copy off all the data and remove the disk.)
3) AFAIK, original setup of mobo, disks, and OS used Gigabyte and Win defaults. Not sure I understand possible UEFI vs. BIOS conflict details, but there's been no problem until recently.
4) Thinking the problem was caused by something on USB, I removed my wireless keyboard/mouse and Bluetooth adaptors, printer, and UPS link. Nothing helped. Now running with keyboard and mouse hard-wired via USB.
5) I thought booting from the Win 7 install DVD would work, but:
a) Restore seems to run (going back several weeks to a known good point), but fixes nothing; and
b) Repair gets a message that the Repair app is not consistent with the OS (!!!)

Thanks for any help!

More about : bios boot order find correct hdd gigabyte z77x ud3h ami bios

!