PC boots to BIOS before windows every start

[harrisallgeier]

So I've had this problem for awhile: Whenever I start my pc it boots to BIOS before booting to windows. If i exit bios and resets, the pc boots normally but it will never immediately boot to windows. This hasn't been a problem until I needed to install some drivers that required a restart, however because the pc always boots to BIOS first, I cannot complete any installation/uninstallation that requires a restart.

I believe this may be connected to the fact that I have a secondary HDD with an Active system partition on it (I used to use it as an OS drive but switched to an SSD). I saw advice on these forums suggesting people with this kind of problem disconnect the problem drive, run windows startup repair from a boot disk, and reformat the drive.

I tried this but when I disconnect the old HDD windows will not boot, I just get kicked to BIOS every time, even though the OS i'm using is not on that HDD.

Specs: Asus Z170-AR motherboard
Intel i7 6700k CPU
The problem drive is a Seagate st1000dm003 1TB
My SSD is a crucial BX 100 500gb

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ArtPog]

1. It would help if you would provide a screenshot of Disk Management, ensuring that the screenshot includes the schematic for both your installed drives as well as the upper portion of DM so as to include the info in the various columns just below the icon menu bar (the info in the columns from "Volume" to "% Free".

2. What's the OS?

3. What do you SPECIFICALLY mean when you state the system always "boots to BIOS before booting to windows." Are you indicating the opening screen of the motherboard's BIOS/UEFI displays after you power-up the PC?

4. If that's so, what's your next step? You have to access the boot priority order in the BIOS settings and select the SSD? That's the only way for you to reach the Desktop? BE CLEAR ABOUT THIS.

5. And, as you mentioned, BOTH your SSD & HDD must be installed at that time for the system to boot to the Desktop, right? And there's no problem with the system thereafter properly functioning.

Again, send in a screenshot of Disk Management following the boot to the OS.

 

[harrisallgeier]

1. It would help if you would provide a screenshot of Disk Management, ensuring that the screenshot includes the schematic for both your installed drives as well as the upper portion of DM so as to include the info in the various columns just below the icon menu bar (the info in the columns from "Volume" to "% Free".

2. What's the OS?

3. What do you SPECIFICALLY mean when you state the system always "boots to BIOS before booting to windows." Are you indicating the opening screen of the motherboard's BIOS/UEFI displays after you power-up the PC?

4. If that's so, what's your next step? You have to access the boot priority order in the BIOS settings and select the SSD? That's the only way for you to reach the Desktop? BE CLEAR ABOUT THIS.

5. And, as you mentioned, BOTH your SSD & HDD must be installed at that time for the system to boot to the Desktop, right? And there's no problem with the system thereafter properly functioning.

Again, send in a screenshot of Disk Management following the boot to the OS.

1. https://imgur.com/V3EtmPj
2. Windows 10
3. Yes, it always boots to the UEFI/ BIOS Utility screen, see: here


4. I just hit "Save and Exit" in BIOS, the pc restarts and it boots into Windows 10. I do not have to access boot priority and select the SSD.

5. Correct. The system will not boot without both the SSD and HDD but after it boots there are no problems. I have also unplugged the HDD after booting and the system works fine.

 

[cherry blossoms]

harrislaageier, you still have a 1TB HDD set as the SYSTEM ACTIVE partition. You can only have one SYSTEM ACTIVE partition as that partition will contain the bootloader pointing to the actual OS partition. you will need to set your OS drive (the SSD) as the active system partition and set the hard drive as a non-active, non system partition. Also make sure your SSD is plugged into sata port 0, so it,s the first drive seen.

This is accomplished using diskpart.

 

[harrisallgeier]

harrislaageier, you still have a 1TB HDD set as the SYSTEM ACTIVE partition. You can only have one SYSTEM ACTIVE partition as that partition will contain the bootloader pointing to the actual OS partition. you will need to set your OS drive (the SSD) as the active system partition and set the hard drive as a non-active, non system partition. Also make sure your SSD is plugged into sata port 0, so it,s the first drive seen.

This is accomplished using diskpart.

I used diskpart to set the HDD as inactive and the SSD as active. Upon restart my computer completely failed to boot and I had to use the windows boot disk to switch them back. Does this mean my pc has actually been booting from the HDD this whole time?

 

[cherry blossoms]

Your bootloader contains info to start and points to where the OS actually is. Your system bootloader partition does not need to be your windows OS partition, and it's an annoying "feature" of the windows installer to put it elsewhere. This is why you disconnect every drive except the drive your windows OS is going on when you first install windows. Your OS is still loaded from the drive you setup for it, but the bootloader is elsewhere.

Hmm..lets take you out of the command line for moving / altering your bcdstore.

go to:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easybcd.html

and get EasyBCD

a guide to what you need here:

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

 

[cherry blossoms]

As an additional note once you get the drives bootloader info straightened out.

Make sure the correct boot drive is selected in the BIOS

If you have UEFI Ultra Fast Boot enabled, and set to ultra, you can also try setting it to fast or normal instead.

 

[harrisallgeier]

Your bootloader contains info to start and points to where the OS actually is. Your system bootloader partition does not need to be your windows OS partition, and it's an annoying "feature" of the windows installer to put it elsewhere. This is why you disconnect every drive except the drive your windows OS is going on when you first install windows. Your OS is still loaded from the drive you setup for it, but the bootloader is elsewhere.

Hmm..lets take you out of the command line for moving / altering your bcdstore.

go to:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easybcd.html

and get EasyBCD

a guide to what you need here:

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

Thank you! Solved my problem perfectly.

 

[mangopeople22]

*Automatically go into BIOS every time start up
To solve this problem.
You have follow the following rules:
1)On the startup press "F1" and Go to the UEFI BOOT Utility .
2) Then go the "Advance setting" or prees F7 . Then go to the "Boot" option and then disable the "Fast boot"

Hope it is helpful to you.

 

[garrickpahl]

Your bootloader contains info to start and points to where the OS actually is. Your system bootloader partition does not need to be your windows OS partition, and it's an annoying "feature" of the windows installer to put it elsewhere. This is why you disconnect every drive except the drive your windows OS is going on when you first install windows. Your OS is still loaded from the drive you setup for it, but the bootloader is elsewhere.

Hmm..lets take you out of the command line for moving / altering your bcdstore.

go to:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easybcd.html

and get EasyBCD

a guide to what you need here:

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

Hi Cherry I am having the same issue but for some reason i cant complete the steps needed in this set of instructions for BCD these are the issues I had any help would be appreciated
<a href="https://imgur.com/ujqAwqF"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ujqAwqF.png" title="source: imgur.com" /></a> this one is the beginning of starting BCD

<a href="https://imgur.com/eVXHjly"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/eVXHjly.png" title="source: imgur.com" /></a> this is the issue encountered.