asrock x58 extreme3 won't boot samsung evo 850 ssd without disc

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badcrc

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I'm at my wit's end here. I've had this asrock x58 extreme3 machine for several years and it has performed flawlessly until I tried to use a samsung evo 850 3D vertical ssd as my boot drive replacing my wd black hd. The weird thing is the drive boots up perfectly with the windows 7 pro disc in the drive, but without it the system says theres no boot media found. I was cloning my wd black to the ssd and after 2 days and 5 software packages I installed win7 clean to the ssd with no issues until I removed the windows disc and rebooted.

The mbr and bootcfg aren't the problem and windows startup repair reports no issues found on the clean install no matter how many times I run it. I'm using sata3 port 1 with a sata3 cable. AHCI is enabled on the sata controllers and confirmed ahci by bios on startup. The ssd is detected on startup and in the bios. I'm running the latest bios 2.80. I contacted asrock and their response was that they tested the samsung evo 850 on this board (among others) without issue. I'm trying to find out which marvell bios they were using.

Does anyone have other ideas? I really dont want to scrap this setup I put a lot into it.
 
Solution
This is very weird, indeed. You've done an excellent job with the troubleshooting and covered almost everything that could be causing this. I guess one of the few things left to do is to try installing Windows via a bootable USB flash drive, without having any media in the DVD/CD-ROM. (Just make sure the USB is listed in the boot priority beforehand.) I remember a similar case to yours, where the user had a corrupted Windows installation DVD. Maybe you should give it a try with the USB drive and see how it goes.
If it's still unable to make the SSD bootable all on its own, you should contact the manufacturer's technical support and ask for assistance because the issue might be the SSD itself. You also mentioned that you're able to boot...
Hey there, badcrc!

I'm sorry to hear about your booting issues! :( Did you, by any chance, unplug the WD Black from the motherboard when you were performing the clean install on the SSD? I think that if you had both drives plugged into the SATA ports, you are most probably encountering an OS confusion which would explain the booting issues. The confusion basically causes the OS to store the system files randomly to all the storage devices connected at the moment of the installation, so after you disconnect one of them, the system is unable to boot properly.
Have you checked the boot priority in BIOS? Make sure that the SSD is first (or after the OS DVD/USB install media).

If it's indeed an OS confusion, you'd need to unplug the WD Black from the SATA port and re-install Windows from scratch again.

Keep me posted though!
SuperSoph_WD
 

badcrc

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Thanks for the reply. Yes, I had the SSD by itself while installing and testing. Part of my 2 days of hell trying to get the cloned ssd working was determining that my WD black has the bootcfg on the same main partition as the windows installation. Originally I thought that was the reason the ssd wasn't booting (I thought the bootcfg was on a partition on my 3TB storage drive), but it turns out my WD black boots fine with no other drives/discs in the system.

Anyway, when I did the clean install to the ssd to eliminate any cloning issues I was very careful to not have any other drives hooked up. Whatever is going on with having the Windows disc in the drive is the solution to this issue. With the Windows disc in the drive and the CD/DVD set to the 1st boot drive and the ssd as 2nd boot drive, the system detects a DVD in the drive and prompts to boot from it. With no user intervention it boots from the 2nd boot drive (the ssd) perfectly and Windows starts. With no Windows disc in the drive it doesn't find boot media. If it's not booting from the DVD and only detecting media in the DVD drive, then it can't be loading any drivers or loading any Windows boot configuration information, so what is making it successfully boot? Is that a bug in the sata controller or is it actually loading something from the DVD? Even if it was loading something from the DVD, surely without the DVD it could read and load more accurate info from the actual SSD boot drive that is detected by the bios and configured as the 2nd boot drive (I also tested it as the 1st boot drive, same results), but it instead fails to find any boot media. It's almost as if the controller is ignoring the SSD if it's the #1 boot drive, but how would it know the difference between an SSD and a regular HD? I bet it also works fine on the sata2 controller, which I should test just to rule out any Windows install issue.
 
This is very weird, indeed. You've done an excellent job with the troubleshooting and covered almost everything that could be causing this. I guess one of the few things left to do is to try installing Windows via a bootable USB flash drive, without having any media in the DVD/CD-ROM. (Just make sure the USB is listed in the boot priority beforehand.) I remember a similar case to yours, where the user had a corrupted Windows installation DVD. Maybe you should give it a try with the USB drive and see how it goes.
If it's still unable to make the SSD bootable all on its own, you should contact the manufacturer's technical support and ask for assistance because the issue might be the SSD itself. You also mentioned that you're able to boot into Windows via the WD Black, right? So when you go to Disk Management in Windows, how does the solid-state drive appear there?
Another thing that could be causing such issues is an outdated firmware. Check the SSD manufacturer's website and make sure you have the latest firmware for your model.

Hope this helps.
SuperSoph_WD
 
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badcrc

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So, what would you say if my SSD with the fresh Windows installation boots normally with no DVD in the drive from the SATA2 controller? I just tested that and it works. So here's the scenarios so far:

1) HD (WD Black) on Sata3_1 and no Windows DVD = boots Windows normally from HD (obviously)
2) SSD on Sata3_1 and Windows DVD = Prompts to boot off DVD then auto boots Windows off the SSD normally
3) SSD on Sata3_1 and no CD/DVD in drive = Bios prompts for boot media (even though SSD detected in POST and in BIOS)
4) SSD on Sata3_1 and Linux Ultimate Boot CD = Boots into the Ultimate CD menu automatically (no prompt to boot CD)
5) SSD on Sata3_2 doesn't seem to work at all, it's as if no drive is hooked up, doesn't show in BIOS or POST
6) SSD on Sata2 and no CD/DVD in drive = Boots Windows normally from SSD just like regular HD

I tried the Sata3 cable that came with my motherboard, a Sata3 cable from monoprice, and a third Sata3 cable of unknown origin, none made a difference on the SSD. There's an option in the bios for 32 bit transfer mode when you select any of the Sata ports, which I'm not sure about, but enabled or disabled didn't make a difference booting the SSD.

Boot settings:
w013ix.jpg


Storage config:
2w50rqo.jpg


Sata3_1 config:
28un3wl.jpg


And here's the crappy speed of the SSD on Sata2:

zyhy76.jpg

 

badcrc

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Forgot to say thanks for the help, but I don't think that's an issue after booting the SSD normally from Sata2. Clearly there's an issue on Sata3. I still don't understand how the system boots from the SSD with the Windows DVD in the drive. When the BIOS prompts to boot from a CD/DVD and you don't hit a key, it should either see a boot HD/SSD and boot it or not see a boot HD/SSD and prompt for boot media. No matter what disc is in the drive shouldn't change this behavior. On every PC I've worked on, if a boot CD/DVD is in the drive and you ignore the prompt it's the same as having no disc in the drive. With no user intervention on my part, this system is booting the SSD with the Windows DVD in the drive. If you hit a key at the prompt, the CD/DVD should boot, in this case the Windows install/repair from the DVD, NOT the SSD -- so this part works normally if you hit a key at the boot CD/DVD prompt, but not if you ignore the prompt and let it continue, the SSD boots.

From the beginning I've suspected there's a bug with the Sata3 controller bios, but what I don't understand is what is different with the SSD versus a regular HD, as far as the bios goes. Obviously something is different when it's detecting the SSD to make it not boot, but when the Windows DVD is in the drive simply reading the DVD's boot information is enough to boot the SSD. Is it reading something from the DVD that then allows it to see the SSD as a boot drive?
 
Hi again, badcrc!

I'd suggest you to contact the motherboard manufacturer's technical support and ask them for any specific AHCI drivers for your model. I think this could be the only reason why you are unable to boot properly from the SATA III port with the SSD. Check their website even and make sure you have all the needed SATA/chipset drivers for your configuration.

Hope this helps as well.
SuperSoph_WD
 

kokm33

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I have done the same things as You, I also contacted AsRock I'm still waiting for an answer.
I'm from Denmark and I'm not so good at English language.

Yours sincerely Mogens

 

kokm33

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Here is the answer from AsRock:

As we said in the Tom's hardware. We tested the Samsung 850 and the result was good.
This would might be a faulty Marvell port or the compatibility issue with Marvell SATA firmware.
We hope you can understand.

 

badcrc

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Sorry for some reason I never got a notification about this reply. No I haven't solved it, and I'm very disappointed in ASrock. I have always stuck with a few brands for motherboards, but I gambled on this ASRock board and it has been a very good board until this happened. I also gambled on continuing to use this Samsung SSD with this boot issue and I just leave my Windows DVD in the drive. This poses a problem sometimes when something doesn't get cleared properly on reboot and it automatically goes into the Windows repair off the disc and I have to reboot again.

But every board has some issues, what really disappoints me is ASRock's lack of interest in solving or investigating the issue. To get a response that they tested this SSD and it worked when clearly a lot of people have this issue, and the fix is probably just putting out a modified marvell firmware or something, shows a lack of concern. I think I'm going to scrap this x58 board and upgrade to an Asus, Gigabyte, or MSI.
 
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