Two hard drives / two copies of Windows 7

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mclovin1

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May 26, 2009
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Greetings helpful forum gurus,

In the past, with my six year-old motherboard, I had two hard drives, each with their own unique copy of Windows 7. I used the boot priority in the BIOS to choose which one to boot from (#1 boot priority would boot up). I know this is slightly insane, but I am slightly insane and it fit my needs.

However, I just built a new machine with a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI motherboard and things are not working the way they used to. I can only imagine the reason is because the motherboard is different...perhaps this new fangled "UEFI" technology has something to do with it?

Now, every time I boot, I get a screen telling me to "choose an operating system," with both choices being "Windows 7." The top selection is Drive B (the second Windows copy I installed) and the bottom choice is Drive A (the first copy I installed).
These choices (top = B / bottom = A) remain the same regardless of which drive is the #1 priority in the BIOS.

I could deal with this and wouldn't mind too much, except for something else:

I experimented to see what would happen if one drive failed. If I unplug Drive B, I still get the same screen asking me to "choose an operating system." I just select the bottom choice and it boots up.

Unfortunately, if I unplug Drive A, Drive B will not boot at all! I do not see the screen asking to choose operating system. Instead, I get a message: "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key."

No matter what I do, or however I fuss around in the BIOS, Drive B will NOT boot if Drive A is unplugged.

Any thoughts? Why would this happen?

Much appreciated <3
 
Solution
USAFRet
No matter what I do, or however I fuss around in the BIOS, Drive B will NOT boot if Drive A is unplugged.
Click to expand...

You installed on Drive B while Drive A was connected. The boot partition (identified as System Reserved) live on Drive A.
Disconnect that drive, and no boot for you.

Since this is a completely new install, start over.

Have ONLY your designated drive connected. Install.
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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I would recommend reformatting the drives. When you enable UEFI, and then set the SATA mode to "AHCI", it needs a new format on the drives (partitions will be different). Also, with a new mobo, 99.9999% of the time, you need to reload Windows as the drivers are different.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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No matter what I do, or however I fuss around in the BIOS, Drive B will NOT boot if Drive A is unplugged.
Click to expand...

You installed on Drive B while Drive A was connected. The boot partition (identified as System Reserved) live on Drive A.
Disconnect that drive, and no boot for you.

Since this is a completely new install, start over.

Have ONLY your designated drive connected. Install.
 
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Solution
M

mclovin1

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May 26, 2009
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Hmmm...thanks USAFRet. I am USNRet! ;)

I will try your solution tomorrow.

RonInTexas, thank you, but I am a little unclear on what you are trying to say. I did reformat these drives, and install fresh Windows copies after getting the new motherboard.
 
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mclovin1

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USAFRet's solution worked like a champ! Now I can just hit F12 on boot to select the 2nd priority drive, if I want. Great!! :D

Unfortunately, I have another problem. Drive B is booting up with dead keyboard and mouse. Completely dead...as in no power to the devices. If I unplug and plug back in, they light up, but still don't work. I've tried all USB ports (2.0 and 3.0) and reformatted three times...this problem always develops within 2-6 restarts. Then I'm stuck.

The funny thing is this also happens about 50% of the time when I boot from Windows 7 CD to install the OS. In those cases, I just restart and it has always worked the second time.

No idea why this has never happened to Drive A. Only Windows disc boot, and Drive B. Infuriating!!
 
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ronintexas

ronintexas

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There are a few mobos out there that have problems with the USB keyboard/mouse - plugging them into the PS2 port(s) fixed the problems. You might check for a BIOS update. I have an ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 and it has similar issues. I purchased PS2/USB adapters and a "Y" cable to make it work.
 
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mclovin1

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Thanks Ron, I'll look into that as well.

***I just did some troubleshooting and discovered the problem is not only for mouse and keyboard. After booting into Drive B, and finding dead mouse and keyboard, I plugged in my USB-CD drive, and my USB-smart card reader. Windows did not recognize either one (evidenced by "new device" popup not appearing). So the problem is a completely dead USB bus.

I restarted Drive B seven times in a row, but USB was always dead.

Then I booted into Drive A once (USB works). I then rebooted into Drive B and it began working again, for the past three restarts.

This is positively insane!! :( But this thread is way off track. I will maybe start a new one for this problem.

Thanks again, guys! USAFRet's solutionw was spot-on.
 
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mclovin1

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Frustratingly, the PS/2 adapter does not help. Neither the mouse, nor keyboard, will work via the PS/2 port (in either Drive A or B). I made sure the PS/2 port was enabled in the BIOS and tried a different keyboard / mouse combo that I had lying around.

Unfortunately, I do not have any other machines in the house that even have PS/2 ports, so I can't troubleshoot if it's a bad adapter or not.

However, Drive B's USB bus randomly began working yesterday and hasn't failed since. So I'm just going to go with it and keep my fingers crossed :/

Thanks again, everyone!
 
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