[SOLVED] Controlling boot drive choice.

[scostigan]

I am cloning a M.2 PCIe NVMe stick to another for a nightly snapshot. When I do this the BIOS updates my boot list, usually adds the new clone as the first one.

How do I control this? I just want my primary drive as the "only" automatic boot choice.

I have multiple drives that are standalone boot records. I have edited the boot choices to only include the primary drive and disbled the other slots. But after the clone and a restart the list is modified.

The MB is a AsRock Z490 TaiChi with bios 1.80.
Does anyone have any ideas how to control this?

Thanks

 

[scostigan]

I am cloning a NVMe drive to another. After the clone and a reboot the BIOS adds the new drive to the boot list as the primary drive. How can I prevent this?

My MB is an AsRock Z490 TaiChi v1.80.

Thanks

 

[Tioym]

Select which drive you want to boot from in the Boot Manager. If you dont want to boot from a drive, make sure it comes after the drive you want to boot from in the boot loading order. Also, if a drive at the top of your boot list can not be booted from, the BIOS will move down the list until it is able to boot from a drive

 

[TerryLaze]

Adding to what tioym said, the same thing goes for the ports on your mobo they are numbered and the smaller the number the higher the boot priority so if you put the new drive in a port with a smaller port number it's expected to be seen as the new prime boot drive.

You can also use a partitioning tool to change the flags of the new disk if you want to make it non-bootable.

 

[scostigan]

Sorry not to be clearer, I know how the boot loader works...I have been doing this for more years than I want to admit.

what I am trying to do is automate the backup each night and not to have to manually go change the boot list.

I edit the list and have only the main drive in the list so the is no confusion what drive is booted.

I want to keep the list unchangeable no matter how many bootable drives I add.

 

[Ralston18]

Does the following link present the User Manual applicable to your motherboard?

https://download.asrock.com/Manual/Z490 Taichi.pdf

[Do verify that I correctly identified the User Manual.]

Start with physically numbered Page 25 to check the SATA ports being used. Re: "Shared lanes".

Then refer to Chapter 4, physically numbered Page 70 to check the configured boot options.

Page 93 in particular, I think.

You should read the entire manual before making any changes and be sure that all is backed up just in case.

Then make changes as deemed applicable and necessary. Change only one thing at a time.

 

[USAFRet]

"nightly snapshot"?

Depending on why you're doing this, there are probably much better methods than a straight 'clone'.

I use Macrium Reflect for this, and nightly Images. Either Full, Incremental, or Differential.
No messing about with boot order, etc.
And can store a months worth of nightly Images in the same drive space as a single full clone.

A clone is good for swapping drives right now.
Images are good for backups and potential future use.

 

[scostigan]

I know what a clone is for...I want a quick way to restore my main drive whenever I need. I do some crazy work that messes with the OS and other tweaks for clients. I just want a clean clone that I can use as a clean image to reclone my main drive if I need to.

I am using reflect to make the clones.

I do real incremental s and the like of course. I just need a “right now” drive at the ready.

 

[TerryLaze]

I know what a clone is for...I want a quick way to restore my main drive whenever I need. I do some crazy work that messes with the OS and other tweaks for clients. I just want a clean clone that I can use as a clean image to reclone my main drive if I need to.

I am using reflect to make the clones.

I do real incremental s and the like of course. I just need a “right now” drive at the ready.

That still doesn't need to be a clone unless you really mean you need to be able to switch that fast, you can clone to an image and because you can compress that, on the fly while doing the cloning you can probably fit more than one image on the disk.

Anyway the bios goes through the ports on the mobo by number so if you have your main disk on the first port your system will always boot from that unless you manually change that or the drive failed/is unable to boot.

 

[scostigan]

I do kind of need it that fast. I blowup the main drive quite a bit with customer drivers and the like. I like the fact that I can do a quick clean reclone of the 1 TB drive in about 15 mins with my NVMes.

The problem is I can not change the physical slots on the drive as the "backup" nvme is on a board in the PCIe slot and for the bios has these slots as a lower boot number than the onboard M.2 slots where my main drive is.

 

[USAFRet]

Clone to another drive
Do whatever you need to do - weird edits/changes
Recover that clone to your main original drive

Correct?

I'm not seeing how recovering a clone is any faster than recovering a Macrium Image.

 

[TerryLaze]

I do kind of need it that fast. I blowup the main drive quite a bit with customer drivers and the like. I like the fact that I can do a quick clean reclone of the 1 TB drive in about 15 mins with my NVMes.

Reclone and applying an image will be just as fast, I meant it in the sense of 'ready to go' switch the boot options and boot into the backup drive.
If you don't need that then creating images will solve all your problems since you wouldn't need the backup drive to be bootable it would just hold your images.