BIOS doesn't detect new SSD, but Windows does.

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CaaptN

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Hi. I bought a new SSD (Samsung 850 evo, 250gb) a week ago and i've been trying to get it to work. My goal is to install Windows on it, and maybe the game i play the most, and use my 1tb HDD as the main storage drive.

At first I had problems where Windows wouldn't install on it, because it was set to MBR, so I converted it to GPT.
Then there was error nr2 that said something about partitions, after a while i managed to get it working only after both giving it a new "path letter", formatting and creating a new partition.
By this time I was able to install windows.

Now for my current problem wich I can't figure out at all!
The SSD shows up in the windows installer, disk management, cmd AND windows explorer. I can access the disk and see all of the windows files installed. I can see and manage the disk through Samsung magician (wich says it's healthy, genuine and what sata port it's connected to).

BUT I can't get the SSD to show up in BIOS!!

BIOS tells me that the sata port is empty, and the disk doesn't show up in the disk list or as a boot alternative.

So basically my problem is that I can't boot from the disk..

I've tried:
reseting BIOS.
updating BIOS.
changing sata cable.
changing sata port.
enabling all sata ports in BIOS.
reformatting the disk and reinstalling windows.
checking for drive updates.
removing my HDD.

I've googled this for a week, reading through so many forum threads and following every guide or tips I can find.. But nothing helps.

Usually I can fix these things on my own, I'm fairly handy with computers and so on. But now i'm getting desperate!

So, anyone have any other ideas that I haven't tried already? Any thoughts? Anything that might help!?
 
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Legion93

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If your boot drive is set to the SSD, then it should come up in the BIOS. What is the motherboard you are using? Some drives not show up in the front BIOS screen (such as ASUS' UEFI), but when you go into advanced options and look at the list of devices plugged in it should be displayed. In advanced BIOS, boot menu, disable all boot options then click hard drive bbs priorities, then boot option 1 your SSD should be there. Click back then click boot option 1 and Your SSD should be there.

Since you have your OS installed on your SSD, have you tried to unplug the SATA cables for all drives and make sure only the SSD is plugged into the first SATA port. Then go into the BIOS and see if it is recognized as a boot drive. If no, try another port. Do this until the SSD is recognised.

Are you set up in a RAID array, or AHCI? Usually, the HDD be setup in the Intel RAID chipset BIOS, and the SSD in the Marvel BIOS, then your mobo should recognize the drives.

Might be a daft method, but try shutting down the power supply and removing ALL power from the motherboard. Wait 10 minutes and then power back up. The SSD should be seen under "hard drive bbs priorities" in the BIOS.

It might be a BIOS issue at the end.
 
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ArtPog

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There's no problem here (except perhaps in your frustration, which is quite understandable).

Believe me, your BIOS/UEFI detects your Samsung SSD.
The issue here is that you've been caught in the "Great UEFI Mystery Shuffle". Because you've partitioned your boot drive GPT the drive is booted to via the Windows Boot Manager (as an element of the UEFI interface). If you would access your boot menu upon bootup the likelihood is you would note that this menu reflects the boot drive as both a SATA-connected disk and as a element in the Windows Boot Manager. If, for some reason, you selected the SATA-connected disk as the boot, the system would not boot and you would have to reboot to select a boot from the WBM option. Once you do this the system will continually boot from the WBM without your intervention.

So all is well. Don't worry as long as your SSD boots & functions without any problems. All the rest is conversation.
 
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CaaptN

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Seems like you know what you're talking about, and I like reading that "there's no problem here".
But I can't really see a solution or anything that will help me in your comment. Could you please tell me step by step what I should do? :)

I am not familliar with "Windows Boot Manager", where can I access this? is it one of the lists in BIOS?

Also, you're saying "Don't worry as long as your SSD boots & functions without any problems.", but that's exactly what my problem is, I can't boot from the SSD! :(
 
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Legion93

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I thought you were able to boot into Windows without problems? Can you log into the desktop at all? Seeing as you have the OS installed on your SSD (from what I understand), it should automatically boot from the drive.
 
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Legion93

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Try pressing F8 on startup to access boot menu. On Asus motherboards its usually done by pressing ESC. If the drive doesn't show then try the methods I mentioned earlier. If all else fails, disconnect all drives apart from your SSD, install your OS on it and then boot into Windows. The BIOS will be forced to list or show the SSD as a boot drive since no other drives are connected. You can still add the HDD as a storage device later on.

You shouldn't worry too much about what the BIOS tells you, as long as you can startup successfully and its listed under boot priority menu then its all good.
 
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ArtPog

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Regrettably I misunderstood your post. I neglected to note that you can no longer boot to Windows after successfully installing the OS. So please forgive me for that oversight. I thought you had run into the identical problem a number of users I'm familiar with involving installing the OS onto a GPT-partitioned disk and not being able to boot to the disk because of a UEFI-Windows Boot Manager issue.

If you don't mind staying with me for a while...let me get a clear picture of your present situation, OK?

1. You obviously have a working PC at hand. So how are you booting to this PC? Is this an older HDD that's installed in the PC that obviously contains a bootable, functional OS? And that OS is?...

2. So the Samsung SSD is detected as a secondary drive when you successfully boot to your functional boot drive?

3. Presumably your intention was to create the SSD as your new boot drive by fresh-installing an OS? Win 10?

4. Might be useful to learn the make/model of your motherboard.

5. Was there any particular reason to GPT-partition the SSD? Have anything to do with having a large-capacity HDD that you plan to use for storage/backup?

Again, just so I clearly understand your present situation, when you indicate "The SSD shows up in the windows installer, disk management, cmd AND windows explorer. I can access the disk and see all of the windows files installed. I can see and manage the disk through Samsung magician (wich says it's healthy, genuine and what sata port it's connected to).", all the preceding is SOLELY BASED ON THE FACT THAT THE SSD IS CONNECTED AS A SECONDARY DRIVE, yes? Since you've indicated you cannot boot to this SSD disk you're obviously booting to another drive. If again, I've misunderstood your situation, please make it crystal clear.
 
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CaaptN

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No worries mate :)

To answer your questions:

1. Yes it's an old HDD where I have an old installation of windows 10.

2. Yes, as I said once i'm inside windows (through my HDD) I can see the SSD from there.

3. Yes.

4. MSI B85M-E45

5. Only reason was because the windows installer told me that it couldn't be installed onto an MBR.

On a side note: Now after messing around abit, I decided to format the SSD and unallocate it, so that I could install windows again after updating BIOS. But now I can't install it again, this time it says the opposite of last time "can't be installed onto a GPT drive" >< should i convert it back to MBR?
 
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madmatt30

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Im lost here - you shouldn't be formatiing or converting anything on the ssd for a fresh windows install.
Disconnect your other hard drive , boot the windows disk & repartition & reformat at the beginning of the windows install process.

You shouldn't have to do anything manually partition or format wise.
 
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Legion93

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As I mentioned before, disconnect all drives apart from your SSD. Insert Windows ISO through CD/USB. Turn on computer. Follow installation procedure, e.g. allocate letter to drive, format, partition if necessary. Now do a fresh install of Windows OS on it and then boot into Windows.
 
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CaaptN

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I cleaned the SSD in cmd, initialized it again as MBR, kept it unallocated and managed to install Windows 10 again.
Unplugged all sata cables except the SSD, but when i try to boot all I get is a black screen with some text. something about not finding map...
entered BIOS, and the boot list is still empty.

Tried rebooting with cable connected to all different sata slots, same result every time.

gonna try windows 7 instead, see if it makes any difference and then upgrade to w10.

(I doubt it tho, since there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the installation, only with BIOS not detecting my SSD as a bootable device.)
 
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ArtPog

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When you fresh-install the Win 10 OS onto the SSD I take it the installation proceeds normally with no error msgs. of any kind, right?

What is the OS installation media you're using to install the OS? DVD? Windows Media Tool? What?

At the conclusion of the installation process what precisely happens following the final Windows screen when all indications are that the OS was successfully installed?

Have you attempted to install programs and/or accessed data at that point? No problems?

So does the problem re inability to boot system begin when you either shut down the PC at that point & then power-up or restart from that final Win 10 screen?

It's hard to imagine that installing a different OS, i.e., Win 7, would or should make a difference here. And even if it did it's a poor workaround to resolve this situation for which there has to be an answer.
 
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CaaptN

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I'm using a USB.

The installation goes through all stages, 100% on everything. Then it says something like "restarting computer to complete installation", so after a 10 second countdown the pc restarts itself.
If I leave the USB stick in the pc, it sends me back to the beginning of the installation screen again after startup, where I'm supposted to choose language etc.
If I pull out the USB stick during restart I get the black screen with some text that I mentioned earlier, basically saying it didn't find a bootable device.

I haven't tried installing any programs on the disk.
 
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ArtPog

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Really weird. I've never encountered that problem. I'll be in touch with a number of members of our computer club to see if they've run into a similar situation.

For the most part we've been using the Windows Media Tool for installing the OS and really haven't encountered any problems with that media other than at times during the installation of Win 10 certain screens will repeat for no apparent reason. Doesn't seem to cause any permanent problems from what we've experienced so far.

We've also used the DVD installation disk and that seems to work fine as well.

And I believe you mentioned early on that your MB's BIOS is up-to-date. BTW, think it might be useful to consult MSI's tech support on this?

I'll keep in touch if I come across any info I deem useful. Would appreciate your keeping us informed of progress (one way or the other).
 
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CaaptN

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UPDATE:

Turns out I had done something wrong when updating BIOS, so that it didn't update successfully.

Managed to update it correctly, and FINALLY i can see my disk in BIOS!!

BUT as usual, I bump into the next problem..

I installed Windows again, and got the pc to boot from the SSD. It goes directly to a black screen saying something about it not being able to read from the disk!
I've restarted and tried several times, same message every time.
 
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CaaptN

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UPDATE:

After googling what UEFI means, I figured I'll need to set "UEFI Hard Disk" as #1 in the boot order, that it'll wake up the disk before booting from the disk.

Now when I'm trying to boot, instead I end up in Windows Boot Manager.
Don't know how to proceed from here.
 
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ArtPog

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1. I suspect your SSD is still GPT-partitioned. I don't recall if you've mentioned the size of the secondary HDD in your system. Can I assume it's not > 2 TB? If so, is there any reason you cannot partition the SSD with the MBR scheme? I would advise doing so.

2. You're planning a fresh-install of the Win 10 OS, right? There's no current data on that disk that you need right? But if so, I assume you can access/copy it at this time.

3. Anyway, MBR-partition the SSD and use either the Windows Media Tool or the Win 10 installation DVD as the media to install the OS. When you power-up the PC to begin the installation process, access your boot menu and ensure you boot to the USB or DVD device and NOT the Windows Boot Manager which may also list the media.

See how that goes.
 
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CaaptN

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1. I have partitioned my disk as MBR already. So that's not an issue.

2. Its a clean install, have moved all files I wanna save to an external drive.

3. When I have installed windows and let the pc restart, it sends me back to the beginning of the installation process if I leave the USB in.
If I remove the USB during restart, it sends me to the black screen saying: "A disk read error occured. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart".

I am using default configurations in BIOS.
 
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ArtPog

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But what happens after you remove the USB flash drive (following the apparent successful installation of the OS) and restart the PC? Can you not access the PC's boot menu and select the SSD as a SATA-connected device (NOT via a Windows Boot Manager listing in the boot menu)? Same problem? Inability to boot to the Desktop?
 
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madmatt30

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I think your issue here mate is that your setting the usb as the boot device in bios??
once windows starts installing & restarts it automatically tries to boot from the usb again.
removing it causes fail boot - disk read error.

Have you set the ssd in bios as the second boot device ??
if not thats where the problem lies.

in all honesty you should have an option to set the ssd as primary boot device & do a single boot once only from usb.
This should solve your problem.
 
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CaaptN

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That's when I get the "A disk read error occured. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Restart".

Btw, is there anyway to remove the "solved" status from the post?
 
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