[Solved] ASRock 970 Extreme4 Can't boot to back up drive...HELP!!!

[2wheelfan]

Hello,
My new computer with subject ASRock motherboard booted up nicely right from the build. Windows 7 with AMD Phenom I have opened up to 6 cores. Computer works flawlessly however I can't figure out how to boot to my back up drive.
Some background. I have two identical Seagate 250G SATA drives. Both are recognized and are on line and healthy in Disk Management with respective ID letters C and F.

I have UEFI BIOS 1.50 and when I go into Advance Storage it shows both identical hard drives which they are except for serial no. reflected in the BIOS.

Here is the rub. When I go into the Boot category of the UEFI BIOS, both Boot Option no. 1 and Boot Option no. 1 only reflect one Seagate drive...which apparently is my active C drive which again boots fine. I find no reference of the second Seagate 250G drive in spite of both Disk Management and even in the Advanced part of the BIOS under storage both Seagate hard drives show up....along with the DVD.

Can somebody explain what I maybe doing wrong? The service manual is virtually worthless in explanation of how to boot up different drives...say between option no. 1 and option no. 2. I have been in the BIOS countless times trying to figure out how to boot the second drive that doesn't seem to show up in the boot sequence.
It may relate to what is called S.M.A.R.T. where both drives show up...but I seem to have tried every permutation.

Lastly the second drive works fine. When I go into Computer/Drive F...all my files are in there and I can open them up.
I cloned my C drive and made the F drive a mirror copy...but can't find the second drive ID'ed in the BIOS boot sequence.

Thanks for reading and for for any advice you could provide.

 

[rolli59]

So what is the point of wanting to boot both drives with the same operation system?
You have something like this under your boot priority line/slot "Hard Drive BBS Priority" If you do I believe that is where you swap drives!

 

[2wheelfan]

So what is the point of wanting to boot both drives with the same operation system?
You have something like this under your boot priority line/slot "Hard Drive BBS Priority" If you do I believe that is where you swap drives!

Under Boot Hard Drive BBS Priority....it does show two drive as follows:
Boot Option #1: SATA ST3250312A3
Boot Option #2: SATA ST3250312A3

I have tried repeatedly each option and always the C drive boots versus the identical F drive. What is frustrating..and my error really was I purchased two identical drives. The BIOS of course calls them the same thing...which they are...but I can't differentiate them because of this. I actually thought about that when I bought them...and should have gone with two different drives so I could keep them straight in the BIOS. I have gone into the BIOS now 30 times and not once by trying different combinations have I booted to the F drive....not even by accident trying different combinations...including disabling the BBS. There has to be a way to do this but at this point I am pretty frustrated.

I need help from an expert in UEFI 1.50 for some very express guidance.
Thanks.

 

[rolli59]

I believe you are booting from separate drives, when you change that in BIOS windows calls the boot drive C:
Make a folder on one of the drives and then boot both and see if that is the case.

 

[2wheelfan]

rolli,
What I did was change the desktop picture one drive and it always boots to the same drive. I have done this on other computers...different desktop picture on different drives to know if boot to a different drive. No dice. Honestly, I don't understand how S.M.A.R.T. works...nor how to differentiate the two hard drives in the bios...whether to enable the BBS Priority or not. So if somebody who really understands the UEFI 1.50 Boot procedure, could explain it, that would help. Otherwise, I need to send an email to ASRock's technical support. What is funny is...to come so far on a computer build with no issues and not be able to boot to a back drive...something so fundamental is just silly...and frustrating.

 

[2wheelfan]

Incredibly there were no answers here. Pretty surprising since all you build your own computers. I figured it out by extensive searching for the answer.
Answer for those interested is..in Windows 7, when you clone your operating system to a back up drive, no boot manager is created as with installing windows with the installation DVD. So...even though the computer will recognize the drive as healthy, it won't boot to it.
Resolution is two fold:
- either circumvent the BIOS and boot to the mobo boot manager..for ASRock this is F11 and then select the back up drive to boot...or

-download Easy BCD...which is a great freeware program that allows you to create a boot manager for all the drives on you machine. At start up, a screen comes up asking you which drive do you want to boot to...or you can change the program setting to boot another drive by default.
Hope that helps others who like to clone their primary drive along with files as back up.