CMOS drives keep switching by themselves, help

happyhero

Can anybody advise me please? I installed Window 7 on my my new SSD 256GB drive in my old Medion PC but my father went on and on about Windows 10 so I ended up installing that, I had planned to wait a while like I was advised before going to 10, but anyway all went well and I’m loving the new speed with my new SSD, its like a whole new computer.



When I bought a 256 GB SSD and I already had a original hard drive of 1TB partitioned into 2 and a slide-in-on-top of the PC 600GB drive which I kept my files on.



When I got the SSD drive I plugged it in and changed the CMOS to reflect that it was the main drive. I also did something in disk management to make it show up as it didn’t at first, I can’t remember what exactly as I looked it up at the time. I then unplugged all my drives before installing windows 7 as I found they interfered somehow, ie the SSD would not work afterwards unless the old C: drive was there so I unplugged it and installed Windows 7 again with just the SSD in place which seemed to work fine.



Then weeks after all had been fine it seemed to do an update and when it restarted it seemed to find enough on the old C: drive to start back on the Vista on that drive (I hadn’t cleaned it of stuff yet) so I went to the CMOS and found that the drives had switched order.



All I had to do was put the SSD back as the first boot device and it worked fine in windows 7again. But after some updates it happened again, I’m not even sure if it is the updates causing it. Now I have moved on to windows 10 and it works fine for days but then suddenly switches the drive order in the CMOS, so same problem persists.



So recently I went to disk manager merged the 2 partitions on the old C: drive and formated the drive as a new single drive and also gave it a new name instead of Boot drive (so Vista gone for good) but still every now and again it switches the drive order, the only difference now of course is it wont start and says the “THE BOOT SELECTION FAILED BECAUSE A REQUIRED DEVICE IS INACESSABLE” At which point all I have to do is sort out the drive order in CMOS again which results in it working fine for days.



In CMOS it says SCSI-2 :P3-SAMSUNG SSD 850 EVO is this how it should display or should the SSD being the main drive be SCSI-0 or SCSI-1?


Has the problem got anything to do with the order of the plugged in SATA cables, ie should I switch them round so the SSD is in the first one and will that alter the SCSI bit?


Could my 600gb file containing drive be having any influence, ie should I move the files from that drive to my old C: drive and format it before moving the files back or has that drive got nothing to do with the problem.


How is anything able to switch my CMOS drive order, I didn’t think updates could alter the CMOS?


Any help appreciated

wongataa

Turn off the computer. Open the case and unplug the data cables from your disks. Plug them back in making sure your SSD drive you want to boot from is plugged into the first SATA port (lowest port number) on your motherboard. Turn on and go into the BIOS and make sure the SSD is set correctly in the boot order. Boot into Windows to make sure everything works OK.

Turn everything off and reconnect the other disks.

Not having the SSD on the first SATA port is probably confusing the system as that is normally where the boot drive is connected to.

As you never booted from the 600GB that shouldn't cause any issues and as you have wiped the Vista boot drive that can't cause any issues now.

Fightsback

Sound like you might have installed the boot loader to your HDD instead of your SSD. When installing windows it will put the boot loader on the first in order drive.

http://manski.net/2013/05/windows-setup-boot-manager-and-multiple-disks/

Edit:

re-reading it sounds like you still have a boot loader active (or boot flag) on your old HDD, you need to get rid of it, the boot loader or boot flag, not your drive.

happyhero

I swapped the Sata cables round so that my SSD is now plugged in what was my old C: drive connection and when I then checked in the CMOS SSD comes up like this SCSI-0 :P3-SAMSUNG SSD 850 EVO which looks better and I think right to me and it always boots up in the SSD now but this may have created a new problem.

Often when I switch on it starts and hangs on the INTEL sign which comes up in the first 2 or 3 seconds of starting and before anything else appears on the screen.

Nothing then will happen no matter how long I leave it, whereas boot up when ok now with the SSD takes about 35 seconds from off to fully ready.

So how I get round this is I hold the power button down and after 4 seconds the PC switches off. I then immediately press the power button to start again and it whizzes straight through the INTEL bit and starts in the 35 seconds, any ideas?

What makes the difference, ie why would it start after rebooting?

Any help appreciated.

kwikbreaks

Not sure if it is of any relevance to you but when I added a SATA drive to this machine I found that the sequence of cables was very relevant. The BIOS was able to detect every SATA device and they were ordered correctly in the CMOS settings but no hard drive in a later SATA connector than the DVD drive was visible to Windows. This may be normal - I haven't actually built a machine since the days of the 486 and my previous SSD upgrades were plain swaps rather than additions retaining the mechanical drive apart from one where I swapped out the DVD for an SSD as there were only two SATA ports. I never did try it without having the SSD in the first SATA port but it wouldn't surprise me if there were oddball issues.

Regarding shutdowns. I found mine wouldn't restart from the menu or after patches. It just sat hanging in shutdown with no video. Checking the web I only found two things to try - disabling hibernate and so fast start too or updating the BIOS. It was the BIOS update that did it for me.

As I also upgraded from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 I'm not 100% sure if the drive visibility was on 7 or 10. Certainly the restart was 10. This makes the relevance to you less likely but IMO it is still well worth getting the cable sequence "correct" and checking how outdated your BIOS is.

PPC_hater

happyhero wrote: »

I swapped the Sata cables round so that my SSD is now plugged in what was my old C: drive connection and when I then checked in the CMOS SSD comes up like this SCSI-0 :P3-SAMSUNG SSD 850 EVO which looks better and I think right to me and it always boots up in the SSD now but this may have created a new problem.

Often when I switch on it starts and hangs on the INTEL sign which comes up in the first 2 or 3 seconds of starting and before anything else appears on the screen.

Nothing then will happen no matter how long I leave it, whereas boot up when ok now with the SSD takes about 35 seconds from off to fully ready.

So how I get round this is I hold the power button down and after 4 seconds the PC switches off. I then immediately press the power button to start again and it whizzes straight through the INTEL bit and starts in the 35 seconds, any ideas?

What makes the difference, ie why would it start after rebooting?

Any help appreciated.

ok I think this takes you back to an earlier answer , the word "bootloader" and "installed on other drive" were mentioned , is the delay not the fact that its trying to boot from the SSD , only to find no boot sys , so then it searches for the next drive , which has a bootloader referring it back to the SSD.


can you pull ALL drive leads out excluding the SSD and then check if you have a bootable system


you have not commented on the age of the system , has this setup got a uefi bios?

NiftyDigits

I remember reading about this issue earlier. The solution lay in installing a modified BIOS.
There is an existing modification based 1.0M BIOS, but if I remember correctly, you have 1.0R installed. So an up to date BIOS mod would likely be preferable. I don't have as much time for these things of late. Travel preparations in progress.