2.2 Terrabyte Infinity MSI booting woes

[stevebat]

So, Windows 7 Professional[X64] doesn't boot, its the simple issue with a long line of failed solutions behind it to muddle the issue. Start with the basics, RMA'd a 760GM-P23 (FX). it died on me, sent it in got a shiny new one. and then my hard drive goes: No boot found.

Some errors, steps, and what I tried so far

• 
  ■Step One: Tried windows startup recovery: Got a system not compatible error for some reason
  
  ■Step Two: I nosed in the partition using Gparted, Deciding to reinstall windows 7 seperating out a small partition Windows 7 failed to install. The drive is GPT. Somewhere around here the system reserved partitions were wiped in an attempt to get windows 7 to work
  
  ■Step Three: Attempted several boot recovery functions, bootsect, bootrec. bootsect worked when I tried it on C: but I was unable to boot from c:, and bootrec did jackall. rebuildBCD gave a generic System Device Not Found error when attempting to rebuild from my install.
  
  ■Step Four: Flashed my Bios got a nifty little (Read: Utterly Annoying) tool called 2.2 terabyte infinity. Apparently allows my Bios to function UEFI. Still doesn't boot. Note that my system booted under this before the first MOBO died
  
  ■Step Five: Built a GPT compatible windows 7 install usb drive (Hey the DVD drive doesn't work) which finally allowed system recovery tools to work, startup recovery ran several times, fixed jack, attempted bootrec same results as before, Bootsect gives another error altogether (Does not like UEFI I assume), Windows 7 could be installed
  
  ■Step Six: Installed a copy of windows 7 in the empty space I created earlier
  
  ■Step Seven: Installed several boot managers (Some did not take kindly to my system) courtesy of linux to find one that points to the TWO boot drives that I have of both the original windows install and the reinstall, In both cases when I attempt to boot Bootmgr not found
  

Long story short: A mess.

If anyone has any suggestions I'm open for it, I will try to answer any data I may have missed.

 

[Shaun o]

So what your saying is after you replaced the board.
When you plugged the existing drive into the system, that had a prior boot able os on it you knew to be working.
It suddenly complained there was no boot table device or os found.

First of all I hope you set the bios of the new board up exactly how the old one was.
If not that would of been the cause of not being able to find a boot able device or os.

For example If windows was set up with Sata mode on the first install then the bios would have to be set to that to boot the drive not Ahci or Raid mode for example and vice versa.

If you know the drive was fine the last time you used it. the cause was likely the wrong interface setting for the drive in the bios.

Switching from a Sata mode to Raid mode produces this error also. So it`s important to remember what the sata mode in the bios was set to originally with the first install of windows. Or you get no boot device, or no boot able os found.

Here is an example: if you set a raid 0 array up and install windows, then set the interface type in the bios to Ahci mode or Sata mode it says no boot able devices found.

Have a think what mode was set up when windows was first installed.
Remember the new board was at factory defaults. Was the same mode set in the bios as the old board ?

That will cause havoc for boot manager.

 

[stevebat]

So what your saying is after you replaced the board.
When you plugged the existing drive into the system, that had a prior boot able os on it you knew to be working.
It suddenly complained there was no boo table device or os found.

First of all I hope you set the bios of the new board up exactly how the old one was.
If not that would of been the cause of not being able to find a boot able device or os.

For example If windows was set up with Sata mode on the first install then the bios would have to be set to that to boot the drive not Ahci or Raid mode for example and vice versa.

If you know the drive was fine the last time you used it. the cause was likely the wrong interface setting for the drive in the bios.

Switching from a Sata mode to Raid mode produces this error also. So it`s important to remember what the sata mode in the bios was set to originally with the first install of windows. Or you get no boot device, or no boot able os found.

Sadly I don't remember what the settings were before, so I did fool around with them, trying AHCI caused my primary drive and CD-Drive to read as [IDE] and do nothing and Raid did little, so my current setting is IDE