Question Forgot which SSD is booting my system...

[Petros_K]

I recently cloned my old HDD to an SSD, removed the old HDD, and then added another SSD same model and now forgot which SSD is booting the system and where it's connected at the SATA ports.

I have connections at SATA ports 0, 1, and 2 at my motherboard.

0 = SSD

1 = DVD drive

2 = SSD

My computer (an HP xw4600) must have a connection at port 0 and 1 before it can use 2. It has a traditional BIOS, not UEFI.

I want to leave the SSD that boots and remove the other SSD. I do not recall if the SSD that boots is at port 0, which would be typical, but I really do not recall after I cloned to an SSD did I move it to 0 or leave it at 2.

--Can I simply pull out the connection at 2 to see if the system boots?--or will that do something to screw with the BIOS or MBR and then I'll have a bigger problem?

--If the SSD that is booting is actually at SATA port 2, and I move it to port 0, will it still boot?

 

[punkncat]

Disk Manager should show you by way of the partition structure.

 

[Petros_K]

Disk Manager should show you by way of the partition structure.

Disk Manager does not indicate motherboard connections, at least not directly. Do you mean look at channel and target?

SATA ports 0 and 1 are channel 0?
SATA ports 2 and 3 are channel 1?

And if C drive (contains OS) is listed as channel 0, target 0, then that's SATA port 0 ?

 

[kerberos_20]

Disk Manager does not indicate motherboard connections.

it does not, but disk 0 would be lowest sata port number connected, disk 1 would have higher number
example:
sata port 3 (mainboard) - disk 0 (disk management)
sata port 5 (mainboard) - disk 1 (disk management)
M2 sata (mainboard) - disk 2 (disk management)

sata ports are first, m2 drives are always behind sata

 

[Petros_K]

it does not, but disk 0 would be lowest sata port number connected, disk 1 would have higher number
example:
sata port 3 (mainboard) - disk 0 (disk management)
sata port 5 (mainboard) - disk 1 (disk management)
M2 sata (mainboard) - disk 2 (disk management)

sata ports are first, m2 drives are always behind sata

That may be true for newer systems, but on my PC I have:

SATA port 0 = SSD
SATA port 1 = DVD drive
SATA port 2 = SSD

Disk management indicates the following:

disk 0 = SSD
disk 1 = SSD
disk 2 = DVD drive

I believe you can change how these disc numbers display by changing the letters used for each drive, but that's not really the issue at the moment.

 

[Lafong]

Power off the machine and then disconnect one of the SATA ports that connect to an SSD.

The PC will then boot. Or not.

 

[Petros_K]

Power off the machine and then disconnect one of the SATA ports that connect to an SSD.

The PC will then boot. Or not.

Yes that worked. I simply pulled out the SSD drive that was at SATA port 2 and the system still booted, which must mean the SSD at SATA port 0 is the one the was cloned and has the OS. System still booted.

But was it possible to just pull the cable only because I had the boot SSD at SATA port 0?

In other words, if the system did not boot, which which would mean the SSD that was at port 2 was the cloned drive, if I moved this SSD from port 2 to port 0 would the system still have booted? The BIOS would only have detected a config change and that's it?

 

[Paperdoc]

No. If the OS had been on the SSD on Port 2 and you had moved it to Port 0, the attempt to boot would still look at Port 2 where YOU had told it the boot drive was. It would NOT find a bootable drive there beacuse you had moved it, and it would fail to boot. YOU would have had to tell the BIOS Setup configuration to look to Port 0 for the true location of the moved SSD containing the bootable OS copy.

 

[Petros_K]

No. If the OS had been on the SSD on Port 2 and you had moved it to Port 0, the attempt to boot would still look at Port 2 where YOU had told it the boot drive was. It would NOT find a bootable drive there beacuse you had moved it, and it would fail to boot. YOU would have had to tell the BIOS Setup configuration to look to Port 0 for the true location of the moved SSD containing the bootable OS copy.

That's what I was concerned about, as well as potential corruption of something in BIOS, and then I would have a bigger problem.

So then system would not have booted, and I would have needed to put the SSD back in port 2 to boot, or change the BIOS to look specifically in port 0?

In my BIOS config, I know it says under boot order to look first in DVD drive, then USB, then hard drive. But the system would not search all SATA ports for a bootable drive?

 

[punkncat]

No. If the OS had been on the SSD on Port 2 and you had moved it to Port 0, the attempt to boot would still look at Port 2 where YOU had told it the boot drive was. It would NOT find a bootable drive there beacuse you had moved it, and it would fail to boot. YOU would have had to tell the BIOS Setup configuration to look to Port 0 for the true location of the moved SSD containing the bootable OS copy.

I am not sure this is the case. Unless certain options have been deleted as boot possibilites, adding a new disk should just make it pop up in the boot order as the system checks during post. Am I incorrect on this?

 

[GF`LAW`LESS]

I am not sure this is the case. Unless certain options have been deleted as boot possibilities, adding a new disk should just make it pop up in the boot order as the system checks during post. Am I incorrect on this?

Yes and no, It will detect the drive but also, some systems will require you to reboot it in order to let you flag that drive as bootable after that very system check you mentioned.

So then system would not have booted, and I would have needed to put the SSD back in port 2 to boot, or change the BIOS to look specifically in port 0?

Yes, that's exactly what should happen. With the minor correction that if you have lets say 5 SATAII ports they are tagged as SATAII_0 / SATAII_1 / SATAII_2 / SATAII_3 and so on...
And if bootable Drive in your case SSD is sat at port SATAII_2 your BIOS boot options must match that port number hence port 2 not port 0.

BIOS types vary hence you may only see that as a device 1, 2 and 3, which doesn't necessarily mean it is connected to port 1,2 or 3.

 

[Paperdoc]

In systems I have used in the past, within BIOS Setup you can specify which devices can be placed into the Boot Order and their relative positions (boot priority) in that list. However, although the POST process will survey the entire system and identify the existence and basic functions af all devices it can find, it does NOT automatically add them all to the list of potential boot devices. It WILL offer them as possibilities for YOU to add to that list. One simple way for you to ensure that your system never tries to boot from a particular device is to ensure it is NOT part of that list. For years I had my last system set to try devices in this order:
floppy drive
Optical drive
SATA HDD on SATA Port 0
NO other devices
Under normal circumstances it tried and failed each of the first two and booted from the SATA HDD that DID have the OS. But I could insert a bootable floppy or an optical disk into its other devices and boot from that If I chose too in unusual situations.