Question I keep having issues with this error: "insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key"

[TDHBP_Messed]

So I recently built a new PC and I am having issues with this error. Windows 10 works fine as a whole but the only problem I am currently facing is this one. Every time I boot up it gives me this error and I have to insert my Windows 10 installation drive and select exit and continue to Windows 10.

I set my SSD as the first option boot drive in the BIOS and disabled the second boot option. I also tried boot override, doesn't solve anything. I tried resetting Windows, didn't work but I didn't try completely re-installing it. Fixing Windows also doesn't work. Could it be that my motherboard needs a BIOS update? Or is it driver issues? Windows update?

I also already searched for an answer to this, most forums and websites solve it by setting the primary boot drive as the one that has Windows, which I already have set.

My specs are:
Asus B450-f Strix
Ryzen 5 3600
MSI GTX 1660 Gaming X 6GB
HyperX Predator 16GB 2933Mhz CL15
Samsung Evo 970 Plus 500GB

Let me know if you need any logs or things that might help.

 

[Colif]

boot override should only work on one boot, its for the times you want to boot off 1 device only 1 time, not all the time. Handy for when you installing win 10, you put ssd as 1st drive, and USB in boot override.

i don't think its a windows error, its your bios for some reason

are there any choices in Boot order that are your Boot drive with UEFI in its name? or is that the one you have at the top?

can you show us a photo of your boot screen? upload to an image sharing website and show link here.
Is CSM enabled or disabled on the Boot screen? If its on Auto, it will switch between UEFI and Legacy boot methods at startup, and depending which way Win 10 formatted the drive, its likely starting in the wrong format and can't find the drive

what shows in boot option priorities?

your manual -- https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...ING/E14401_ROG_STRIX_B450-F_GAMING_UM_WEB.pdf

Can you look in disk management and tell me if you have an EFI partition on your boot drive? it will tell me what format drive is and what bios should be.

 

[SkyNetRising]

This problem corresponds to situation, when legacy and UEFI boot are both enabled and wrong boot method is tried first.
Determine, which is the correct boot method and disable unneeded one.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/85195-check-if-windows-10-using-uefi-legacy-bios.html

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

boot override should only work on one boot, its for the times you want to boot off 1 device only 1 time, not all the time. Handy for when you installing win 10, you put ssd as 1st drive, and USB in boot override.

i don't think its a windows error, its your bios for some reason

are there any choices in Boot order that are your Boot drive with UEFI in its name? or is that the one you have at the top?

can you show us a photo of your boot screen? upload to an image sharing website and show link here.
Is CSM enabled or disabled on the Boot screen? If its on Auto, it will switch between UEFI and Legacy boot methods at startup, and depending which way Win 10 formatted the drive, its likely starting in the wrong format and can't find the drive

what shows in boot option priorities?

your manual -- https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...ING/E14401_ROG_STRIX_B450-F_GAMING_UM_WEB.pdf

Can you look in disk management and tell me if you have an EFI partition on your boot drive? it will tell me what format drive is and what bios should be.

https://imgur.com/a/oeE6HyZ

View: http://imgur.com/a/oeE6HyZ


These are the default settings. I tried changing them a bit and nothing has gotten me any better results. It's also unclear if my SSD is UEFI or legacy to me. I'm gonna check Samsung's website

 

[Colif]

can you show us a screenshot of disk management? that will tell us what you have

Your bios is currently set to both UEFI & Legacy, thats why you get the odd reaction at startup. Once you show us a screenshot, we can tell you which to use. Win 10 should default to GPT but as your motherboard can do either in that boot mode, its hard to tell

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

can you show us a screenshot of disk management? that will tell us what you have

Your bios is currently set to both UEFI & Legacy, thats why you get the odd reaction at startup. Once you show us a screenshot, we can tell you which to use. Win 10 should default to GPT but as your motherboard can do either in that boot mode, its hard to tell

https://imgur.com/a/waY3iJu

View: http://imgur.com/a/waY3iJu


USB appears to be UEFI if that helps

What if Windows only boots up when I plug my Windows flash drive is because it's using THAT instead of my SSD? Could I have installed Windows incorrectly?

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

can you show us a screenshot of disk management? that will tell us what you have

Your bios is currently set to both UEFI & Legacy, thats why you get the odd reaction at startup. Once you show us a screenshot, we can tell you which to use. Win 10 should default to GPT but as your motherboard can do either in that boot mode, its hard to tell

Also I forgot to mention that when I do boot override from my SSD it shows that windows needs repair, restarting doesn't work nor exiting to windows and it's a loop unless I plug in the USB. I really believe that I might have installed Windows incorrectly.

 

[Colif]

disk management is part of windows
to get to it you:
go to desktop
right click start
choose disk management
expand next window so can see all columns
take a screenshot and upload to imgur like you have been

if you are UEFI, you want to disable CSM as then PC will only look for UEFI ssd at boot.


Its possible the fact it isn't booting right has caused that problem with windows. It wouldn't be helping it, that is for sure. I don't think you installed wrong, I think its just how bios was set up. It shouldn't be changing its mind every boot as to what its going to look for.

If ssd wasn't only drive in PC I would suggest backing up everything on drive and reinstall win 10. IT might still be fastest fix.

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

disk management is part of windows
to get to it you:
go to desktop
right click start
choose disk management
expand next window so can see all columns
take a screenshot and upload to imgur like you have been

if you are UEFI, you want to disable CSM as then PC will only look for UEFI ssd at boot.


Its possible the fact it isn't booting right has caused that problem with windows. It wouldn't be helping it, that is for sure. I don't think you installed wrong, I think its just how bios was set up. It shouldn't be changing its mind every boot as to what its going to look for.

If ssd wasn't only drive in PC I would suggest backing up everything on drive and reinstall win 10. IT might still be fastest fox.

https://imgur.com/a/PglVDwB

View: http://imgur.com/a/PglVDwB


I screenshot disk management in the link before but here it is.

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

disk management is part of windows
to get to it you:
go to desktop
right click start
choose disk management
expand next window so can see all columns
take a screenshot and upload to imgur like you have been

if you are UEFI, you want to disable CSM as then PC will only look for UEFI ssd at boot.


Its possible the fact it isn't booting right has caused that problem with windows. It wouldn't be helping it, that is for sure. I don't think you installed wrong, I think its just how bios was set up. It shouldn't be changing its mind every boot as to what its going to look for.

If ssd wasn't only drive in PC I would suggest backing up everything on drive and reinstall win 10. IT might still be fastest fix.

So I disabled CSM and none of the drives even show up

https://imgur.com/a/UYyqhVE

View: http://imgur.com/a/UYyqhVE


Then I tried booting from Legacy only and Windows starts but it doesn't start correctly. Black screen. I think this means reinstalling?

 

[Colif]

Your hdd set up as legacy, so don't turn CSM off or it won't boot at all.
Change Boot device control to Legacy only

Did you intend to have C drive on the hdd?

as thats where it is

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

Your hdd set up as legacy, so don't turn CSM off or it won't boot at all.
Change Boot device control to Legacy only

Did you intend to have C drive on the hdd?

as thats where it is

Yeah I made it legacy. And no my HDD is the D disk, C is my SSD. HDD is 300, it's an old laptop HDD repurposed and I'm planning to add a 1TB SSD later

 

[Colif]

okay, i just saw the sizes and assumed.

I think (from memory) the active partition is the boot partition, and if you putting ssd as 1st, its not going to work. I think the hdd should be 1st

you clearly had hdd in when you installed as windows just used the old boot partition on hdd and added 10 to it.

 

[Colif]

If you replace hdd with 1tb ssd, windows won't boot again. You will need to fix this before then.

You won't be getting full benefit from SSD having a slower hdd as 1st step in boot. Might want to copy anything you can off ssd onto hdd and clean install win 10 without hdd in PC.

or just wait until you get the 1tb and fix it up then. PLenty of free space to use then

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

If you replace hdd with 1tb ssd, windows won't boot again. You will need to fix this before then.

You won't be getting full benefit from SSD having a slower hdd as 1st step in boot. Might want to copy anything you can off ssd onto hdd and clean install win 10 without hdd in PC.

or just wait until you get the 1tb and fix it up then. PLenty of free space to use then

I wasn't planning to replace the hdd, just adding the SSD as extra storage. And I started the clean install with HDD inside, is that gonna cause any problems?

 

[Colif]

only if hdd stops working

Have you put hdd into boot order? as it might not need the USB at boot if it can find an active partition.

legacy boot looks at 1st partition on hdd for boot info, if it can't find it, it goes to next item in boot order. So yours had none to choose from and would give that message at startup

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

only if hdd stops working

Have you put hdd into boot order? as it might not need the USB at boot if it can find an active partition.

legacy boot looks at 1st partition on hdd for boot info, if it can't find it, it goes to next item in boot order. So yours had none to choose from and would give that message at startup

https://imgur.com/a/mw7qfPu

View: http://imgur.com/a/mw7qfPu

Now this, I'm amazed as hell. Wait let me try to install again. By the way you've been really helpful up until this point, thanks. I'll reply when the install finishes.

 

[Colif]

take hdd out when you do it

The reserved partition aka System partition is the active part... it should work off hdd? I don't get it.

 

[cherry blossoms]

The easiest thing to do would be as Colif suggested.
Backup your data
unplug all drives except the SSD
Reinstall windows.

The longer you wait, the more painful that becomes from having to not just backup data, but also reinstall programs.

A full reinstall will make sure all your system, bootloader, refresh, etc are on the save drive that you want to boot from.

 

[SkyNetRising]

The easiest thing to do would be as Colif suggested.
Backup your data
unplug all drives except the SSD
Reinstall windows.

Not easiest at all. That may require hours of work, reinstall of OS, drivers, all the software, configuration,restoring of user data.

Easiest/fastest (a bit more complicated though) - would be recreating bootloader partition on correct drive manually.
10 minutes and it's done.

 

[Colif]

Not easiest at all. That may require hours of work, reinstall of OS, drivers, all the software, configuration,restoring of user data.

Easiest/fastest (a bit more complicated though) - would be recreating bootloader partition on correct drive manually.
10 minutes and it's done.

I didn't think of that option, too bad you weren't here to offer it

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

Alright, updating this post. Now when I boot up and it goes to Windows loading it just restarts then nothingness, black screen. I should, as SkyNetRising said, recreate a system partition on the SSD. But is it safe to remove the system reserved partition first? Also I looked things up, recreating a system partition on the SSD is different than a HDD. This is getting frustrating.

 

[SkyNetRising]

At what situation exactly are you now?
As I understand, you tried to reinstall windows? How far did it go?
HDD and SSD connected?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Anyway - bootloader partition on your pc would be recreated this way:
(must be executed from elevated command prompt)

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 465GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 1​

(select 465GB partition)​

srink desired=500​

create partition primary​

format fs=ntfs quick​

active​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot C:\windows /s H:​

 

[TDHBP_Messed]

Anyway - bootloader partition on your pc would be recreated this way:
(must be executed from elevated command prompt)

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 465GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 1​

(select 465GB partition)​

srink desired=500​

create partition primary​

format fs=ntfs quick​

active​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot C:\windows /s H:​

I created the partition in cmd and I restarted it then jt worked, i wanted to be completely sure so I turned it off and as it was shutting down I got a BSOD error: KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED. I don't know if that is related to the new system partition but it's there and the PC is frozen on that