Asus Mobo - Can't select between SSDs in Boot Sequence

LucianH

I'm really stumped with this problem. I'm trying to set up a dual boot on an Asus P8Z77v Pro mobo and have two SSDs attached. One is a Crucial M4 128gb connected to the first channel of the SATA 6gb/s interface and a Sandisk 120gb connected to the second channel (in the bios these show up as P0 and P1).

Now to the problem: after installing Win 7 on the M4 and then XP on the Sandisk I used EasyBCD to sort out the bootloader but I could not set the M4 to the Boot device in the Bios. Both the M4 and the Sandisk were listed in the SATA page and also under the Boot Override list (so I could manually bot from the M4 by going into the bios and selecting it in the boot override) but only the Sandisk could be selected (as well as the CD drive of course) in the boot sequence “drop down”.

Not knowing whether the installs of the OS’s had some effect I deleted and recreated each partition using Gparted. Again only the Sandisk was showing up in the list to set the boot sequence. So I disconnected the Sandisk, re-booted and, yep, the M4 was now listed. Then it got interesting – I reconnected the Sandisk, rebooted and, this time, the M4 showed up but the Sandisk was not listed.

So, why can’t I see both SSD’s in the boot sequence “drop-down”?

Now I know I should be posting this on the Asus forum but… (and now my frustration comes out!) the Asus forum is a load of expletives. It takes nearly a minute just to change pages and it’s refused to accept my registration.

So I’ve given up on the Asus forum and come back to my trusted Techie forum with hope there’s someone out there with some knowledge of the Asus Bios.

LucianH

It's just occurred to me that I am also seeing only one of the two optical drives I have fitted in the boot sequence "drop down". I have a DVD drive in one channel of the 3gb/s SATA interface and a Bluray on another 3gb/s channel (shown as P3 and P2 in the Bios). Only the DVD drive shows up but if I disconnect it then the Bluray shows up in the "drop down" for the boot sequence selection.

Now I'm guessing that there's some sort of pairing going on P0/P1 (SSD's) and P2/P3 (opticals) and it only shows one of each pair in the boot sequence selection. But what determines which of the two pairs is available for the boot sequence and if the one you want is not shown how do you get it to be the boot device?

spud17

I can't check my (older) Asus (PK5???) at this moment.:)

In the BIOS you select the boot devices, but the only options for HD and optical drive are the first entry in each of the 2 separate lists of HD boot devices and optical devices.
You can reverse the order within these sub-lists.

All boot devices are shown if you use F8 for the BBS selection.

I'm guessing that EasyBCD only sees what the BIOS allows it to see.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Try by-passing the F key BIOS BBS selector and going from a working primary Win7 O/S - Find Acronis Boot Selector 11 which is part of Acronis Disk Director 11, I've never known it fail .. .. yep .. .. sure as god~made~little~apples theres a chance that it will now that I've stated """I've never known it fail"""

NOTE : everyone has an opinion - I have one too EasyBCD is carp!

robmar0se

It maybe helpful if you list your easybcd setttings so we can see what you have here. Also did you load XP first or second?

Here is my easybcd with no probs at all;

There are a total of 4 entries listed in the bootloader.
Default:
Timeout: 30 seconds
Boot Drive: C:\
Entry #1
Name: Earlier Version of Windows
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr
Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows XP Pro
BCD ID: {d70ab2db-ca89-11dd-8756-c26f05df5c6e}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR
Entry #3
Name: Vista Home Premium
BCD ID: {d70ab2dd-ca89-11dd-8756-c26f05df5c6e}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Entry #4
Name: Microsoft Windows 7
BCD ID: {d70ab2ed-ca89-11dd-8756-c26f05df5c6e}
Drive: G:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

S0litaire

doesn't Win7 have it's own boot menu?

I'm sure if you installed XP first *THEN* Win7. The XP shows up in Win7's boot menu. (I'm sure it did that on my system when i had both installed but that was over a year ago!).

LucianH

Many thanks Richie-from-the-Boro, robmar0se, and S0litaire - to be honest, I'm not too worried about managing to get the dual boot to work - I've simply been trying things out and, yes, the issue of not being able to set the correct boot drive was following an attempt of Win7 first followed by XP. I'm sure if I try it XP followed by Win7 then it should work.

Why I really posted this thread for was to understand how the BIOS selects what it presents for the boot sequence. And I can concur with spud17:

spud17 wrote: »

I can't check my (older) Asus (PK5???) at this moment.:)

In the BIOS you select the boot devices, but the only options for HD and optical drive are the first entry in each of the 2 separate lists of HD boot devices and optical devices.
You can reverse the order within these sub-lists.

All boot devices are shown if you use F8 for the BBS selection.

I'm guessing that EasyBCD only sees what the BIOS allows it to see.

My BIOS shows the following devices:

- P0: Crucial M4 SSD (connected to SATA6G_1)
- P1: Sandisk SSD (connected to SATA6G_2)
- P2: DVD Drive (connected to SATA3G_3)
- P3: Bluray drive (connected to SATA3G_4)

All these devices are displayed in the Boot Override section of the BIOS and also if you press F8 during boot. But, at the moment, only the following are available for selecting the Boot Order:

- IBA GE Slot
- P0 M4 SSD
- P2 DVD Drive
- Disabled

Although, as I posted originally, after the Win7/XP install the "P1 Sandisk" was being shown instead of the "P0 M4". Only after disconnecting and reconnecting the Sandisk has the M4 replaced the Sandisk on the selection.

To be honest, if there was some logic of only one of each pair of devices being shown then P0 and P2 makes sense. But what happened, and where is the info held/modified, to make the "P1 Sandisk" available instead of the P0?

So getting back to your post spud17:

spud17 wrote: »

You can reverse the order within these sub-lists.

How do you reverse the order within the P0/P1 and P2/P3 pairs?

Toxteth_OGrady

I've just looked in the BIOS boot menu of an older ASUS mobo (R3E) and the boot device priority list only shows P0 and not P1, as you've just described. In the BOOT menu tab there is also a HARD DISK DRIVES sub-tab that "specifies boot sequence from available devices." The only options here are to select either P0 or P1 as the bootable hard disk. Making a change removes P0 from the boot device priority list and F8 list and replaces it with P1.

LucianH

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

I've just looked in the BIOS boot menu of an older ASUS mobo (R3E) and the boot device priority list only shows P0 and not P1, as you've just described. In the BOOT menu tab there is also a HARD DISK DRIVES sub-tab that "specifies boot sequence from available devices." The only options here are to select either P0 or P1 as the bootable hard disk. Making a change removes P0 from the boot device priority list and F8 list and replaces it with P1.

Thanks, I'll have another look this evening - I couldn't see anything obvious when I went through the ASUS UEFI BIOS at the weekend but I'm sure it must be there somewhere.

Pikeyp

Ah , if it's the UEFI bios , can't you go into it and 'drag' the disk you want to boot from into the first position using the mouse?

I'm not dual-booting with my ASUS so I can't try it myself!

spannerzone

Rather than faff with bootloaders I installed Win7 on my first HD then unplugged it, loaded XP on my second HD and then plugged both in again. When I boot up I use the BIOS boot menu rather than any windows boot loaders, this means I can very easily get rid/change one of the operating systems without any chance of screwing up the boot loader.

Not exactly neat or perfect but actually works easily.