Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device

1WaffleIron

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May 11, 2013
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I built my first rig a few years ago and haven't had too many major issues with it until today.

Here are the specs:

Asus P9X79 LE ATX LGA2011 Motherboard
Intel Core™ i7-3930K
SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III Solid State Drive
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Windows was installed and running off of the Samsung SSD

Here's the issue:

I drove it from Florida to New York last August and had no problems upon setting it up. It's pretty much been fine all this time. Last week I moved it to my new place. It worked fine for a few days. I used it last night, it was perfect, nothing out of the ordinary. This morning I wake up and turn it on only to be greeted with "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key."

I've tried so many fixes that have been posted on here and various other sites. I disconnected all drives but the SSD windows is installed on and tried to boot. Dusted off the insides. Reconnected the drives. Changed the boot order in BIOS so my SSD was first. Overided the boot to the SSD. Still, I get the same problem. To make matters worse now I don't see my Seagate drive in BIOS anymore now that i've connected it again. I haven't checked the drives to see if they've failed, which I know is the obvious first step, but I don't have a Windows disk so I can't really do that.

I included the info about the move because I'm guessing that has something to do with the problem but I'm at a loss. Any advice would be appreciated!
 
Solution
It's really important, if not vital, that you test both disks.
Since you obviously have another PC available is there any chance that you could connect those disks internally in the system or as USB-connected devices and then use the appropriate HDD/SSD diagnostic programs (available from Samsung & Seagate) to test each?

And what happens if & when you do connect those two disks in your working PC? Are both disks recognized?

I take it you originally fresh-installed the OS (Win 10?) on the SSD, right? Your 2 TB secondary HDD does not contain an OS as part of its total data, right? Or does it?

Some of your comments are rather puzzling. What do you mean when you say you "Changed the boot order in BIOS so my SSD was first. Overided the...


Thanks. Unfortunately, I just tried it and had no luck. I made sure to set my boot order again after moving the ports. Same result.
 
It's really important, if not vital, that you test both disks.
Since you obviously have another PC available is there any chance that you could connect those disks internally in the system or as USB-connected devices and then use the appropriate HDD/SSD diagnostic programs (available from Samsung & Seagate) to test each?

And what happens if & when you do connect those two disks in your working PC? Are both disks recognized?

I take it you originally fresh-installed the OS (Win 10?) on the SSD, right? Your 2 TB secondary HDD does not contain an OS as part of its total data, right? Or does it?

Some of your comments are rather puzzling. What do you mean when you say you "Changed the boot order in BIOS so my SSD was first. Overided the boot to the SSD. Still, I get the same problem."
If your SSD was (is) the boot disk in your system why would you "overide the boot" to this drive? What were you "overriding" to? A secondary HDD? Wasn't the SSD always first in boot priority in the system?

You say "To make matters worse now I don't see my Seagate drive in BIOS anymore now that i've connected it again." Are you indicating that when you attempt a boot to your system, i.e., to the SSD boot drive, the 2 TB secondary HDD is not now detected in the BIOS, however, previously when you booted to the system even though it would result in a failed boot the 2 TB HDD was detected in the system? Is that what you mean when you indicate "matters (are) worse now"? There's nothing "worse" than not being able to boot to a system, is there?

In any event, as I indicated in my first comment, at this stage, it is crucial that you test your drives.
 
Solution


Ah yeah, I suppose I wrote that rather hastily. Sorry for the confusion. I burnt a Windows 7 Disc, so I'll test those drives when I get home.

Yes, I originally fresh installed Windows 7 on the SSD. There's no OS on the Seagate drive.

When referring to the boot order, I actually meant, I made sure that my SSD was set as the first option in the Boot Order in BIOS. Even though the SSD had priority, I still "overrode" it at the suggestion of a user on another forum, which obviously did nothing but I tried it anyway.

And yes, you're right, "to make matters worse was probably" not the right phrase to use there. Someone told me that I should disconnect the 2TB HDD and just try to boot from the SSD. I did that and nothing changed, then upon reconnecting it, I noticed it was no longer showing up in BIOS, even though it previously had. So I guess I just assumed I mightve screwed it up or something.
In any event, I will definitely test them later! Thanks.