Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P Boot Problems

[SeamusG]

My first thread - please be merciful

Current state: A bootable media must be loaded in the DVD drive and have the DVD drive as the 1st device in the boot sequence to successfully boot from my hard drive. Opsys is Win 7.

Background: My workstation became unstable. MB was an MSI AM2 unit with an AMD Athlon II x64 dual core w/ 2 Gb of DDR2 memory and a new Ratheon 4850 VC, 430 W. PSU. It had 5 SATA HDs and 1 PATA DVD drive.

The MB/CPU/MEM was upgraded to an MSI NF750-G55 AM3 unit, AMD Phenom II X3 CPU and 4 Gb DDR3 memory. A Sony SATA Optiarc replaced original Sony IDE unit. The MB only had 5 SATA ports so a HD was removed for use as a external HD. All was fine except that the 5th SATA port was not operational.

The MSI MB was replaced with a Gigabyte MA790XT-UDP4. Only difference is that the MSI unit power connectors were a 12x2 and 2x2. The Gigabyte power connectors are a 12x2 and a 4x2. The PSU's 2x2 installs in one end of the 4x2 connector leaving 2x2 open.

Win 7 upgrade was clean installed on the new config and all apps were reinstalled.

Boot config: DVD is 1st device w/ HD as 2nd & 3rd. There is only 1 bootable HD and it is the 1st in the HD boot list.

When the system is booted w/ bootable media in the DVD drive the log includes the CD boot prompt and then boots from the HD normally after 5 seconds (as expected). If, however, the DVD drive is empty the sequence hangs just before the display of the CD boot prompt or if the DVD drive contains non-bootable media it hangs.

Anybody have a suggestion? I have posted a question to Gigabyte's support site - not holding my breath.

Could the PSU / MB cable mismatch (2x12 + 2x2 : 2x12 + 2x4) cause an issue?

TIA,

SeamusG

 

[SeamusG]

Hate it when ya solve your own problem.

Somewhere along the line one of my "storage" hard drives had a "system" partition allocated on it. Apparently there can be one and only one HD with that partition and it needs to be in the boot sequence. That device has been removed (temporarily) and I reinstalled Win7 and all is well (until I screw something else up). If ya don't break something ya just aren't trying hard enough.

 

[bilbat]

You want to get rid of (inevitable) boot problems using more than one OS partition, DL a copy of BootIt Next Generation:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-bootit-next-generation.htm
You'll never go back!

 

[SeamusG]

Guess the real issue is that I had 3 different 80GB system HDs (XP, Vista and 7) mounted. Just needed to change the boot config and boot to a different opsys. I'll check out BootIt NG. Thx.

 

[bilbat]

BootIt is fantastic - keeps an 'EMBR' (extended or enhanced - I forget which) of it's own, and then 'writes' the actual (OS readable) MBR on a 'per-boot' basis, so none of your OS can 'see' the other's drives and/or partitions - you get to pick & choose what's 'visible' to each...