SSD shows as UEFI after CMOS reset, returns to SATA after restart

Hello Skynet,

I am currently away from my computer but when I am able, I will get you the screenshots you are requesting. I will also look into making sure the partition is EFI.

herrwizo, thank you for your input as well. I think the first one or two times I tried installing Windows 10 on the SSD I made that mistake, but many times I had the HDD removed completely and formatted/installed W10 on the SSD, still to no effect. I will always keep the HDD out when installing W10 on the SSD now, but I am just sharing this as information that probably (and unfortunately) this isn't the culprit.

I've attached the screenshot from Disk Management immediately after installing W10 on my SSD. My HDD is not attached. The 14GB drive is my USB wit W10 ISO on it. I ask your greatest forgiveness for providing a screenshot in the form of a picture of my monitor taken from my camera phone--I did this only because I do not have internet access from my desktop after installing Windows, so the easiest thing for me to do is take a picture of the screen.


I also wanted to add that I've been researching AHCI vs IDE and disabling CSM. when I've tried disabling CSM, I get the following error when booting:
The VBIOS of your discrete VGA card does not support UEFI GOP, so it can not support “Ultra Fast Boot” and “CSM Disable”.

Therefore, I'm not pursuing it any longer. I've set the drives to AHCI since it's supposed to be superior (it was always IDE before) so we will see how that goes. Previously, they were set to IDE and that is when I got the UEFI boot option--perhaps AHCI will eliminate that, or perhaps it will complicate things more. Nothing I can do except find out by testing.

EDIT 2: I just shut down my computer and removed the USB boot disk. I then booted from SSD. I now get a "Reboot and Select proper Boot Device" error. No idea why this is happening. Reverting to IDE did not change anything. The SSD is GPT formatted--I checked in DISKPART when booting from USB and using command prompt.

EDIT 3: I once more reinstalled Windows but this time when installing and now at my desktop, the screen is hi-res and not in a small, low-res box with black edges. I have an updated shot of my Disk Management screen:


I am not sure why now the screen is so hi-res. My GPU is currently removed from the computer. CSM is enabled and my drives are formatted as AHCI. The only difference was that when I was installing W10 and it rebooted as part of the process, I hit F11 and booted from the USB in UEFI mode again, then installed W10 again (which I do by removing all partitions from the drive and then installing).

Now I just rebooted and attempted to boot from my SSD (labeled as AHCI drive). I get the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" screen. What the heck? It had just installed and was running so nicely, why when I reboot does it suddenly go to heck and act as if W10 doesn't exist on the SSD?

EDIT 4: I noticed that if I restart my computer and try to boot from my SSD, I get the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" screen. HOWEVER, if I boot from the USB in UEFI mode and then go to Repair My Computer > Continue (Exit and continue to Windows 10), my computer goes to the home screen and works no problemo. So for some reason, booting from the ISO USB, and then continuing to W10 via the Repair menu somehow works. Any idea why that is?

Hi all, I have added some additional details to my most recent post. Would you kindly let me know what you think? After EDIT 4, I reinstalled Windows on the SSD and now I'm back to where I was--able to get to the desktop but still only by booting from the USB and then Repair > Exit and Continue.

Hi SkynetRising, I attempted these directions and came up against a few obstacles but I would like to share my results with you:

Attempt 1: I did exactly as you said. Upon reboot and selecting the SSD (labeled as an AHCI drive, keep in mind), I still got the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" screen.

Attempt 2: I tried again with your directions, but this time I made sure AFTER completing them to disable CSM upon bootup. This caused the SSD to disappear from the boot options as usual, so instead I chose the only option--Windows Boot Manager. This got me to a home screen but after logging in, I just got a black screen. I was able to open the Task Manager and use mouse & keyboard, but the screen always remained blank.

I rebooted and re-enabled CSM, then attempted to boot from the SSD. Still "Reboot and Select."

I rebooted and selected to boot from Windows Boot Manager. This got me to my home screen, I logged in, and now it appears to be working normally. This is very strange to me because nowhere has anyone mentioned booting from the Boot Manager.

I am very curious to have your thoughts on this. If this is stable, my next step is to re-install my GPU and then HDD so I can remove Windows off it and start wiping it/porting things over. Before I do this I'd love to have your input.

EDIT: If I haven't already answered your question with the details in my steps, I cannot boot from the SSD without going through the USB flash disk first, unless I use the Windows Boot Manager apparently. I also made sure that the SSD was in AHCI mode before installing Windows on it--at least, I made as sure as I could.

Here is the boot priority which I have now set up so Windows Boot Manager is first:


So you're telling me that I've been booting from the wrong place all along--that I should have been booting from Windows Boot Manager, not my SSD? If so, mind = blown.

Since this seems to be working very well, I am going to attempt reinstalling my GPU and HDD. Hopefully Windows Boot Manager will choose the SSD to boot from. If not, I suppose I can try erasing the System partition from the HDD--what do you think of that?

I have backed up my HDD to an external drive so even if all goes to hell, I can just wipe the HDD and reinstall things on it.

Please kindly let me know what you think. I am really surprised that my issue started with the SSD showing as UEFI only once after CMOS reset and now my solution has taken me somewhere completely different...

Thanks for all the help SkyNetRising. I popped my GPU and HDD back in, everything seems to run just as I'd like. Finally, I can get back to using my computer

I'd like to give you credit for finding the answer, but in all these posts there's not a single one that I say was the actual solution to the problem--rather, it was the result of an ongoing troubleshooting conversation. Here's what I believe the solution was:

1) Remove HDD prior to installing Windows on SSD
2) Switch storage/drive configuration from IDE to AHCI prior to installing Windows on SSD
3) Disable CSM if possible--this may not work for you and did not work for me, but in the end this was not mandatory for this solution
4) Remove Windows installation drive (disk or USB) after setup
5) Set boot priority to Windows Boot Manager -- computer should boot from SSD
6) Reinstall HDD and maintain booting from Windows Boot Manager
7) Computer should maintain booting from SSD and all should be well.

A couple notes maybe worth clarifying:
Is it important that my SSD was GPT formatted?
Was selecting the System partition and assigning it a separate drive letter necessary?

I'm going to mark your previous comment about booting from Windows Boot Manager as the solution to this issue. Thank you