SSD shows as UEFI after CMOS reset, returns to SATA after restart

[oddsock10709]

SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 500GB
Mobo: ASRock H61M-HVS

Two weeks ago I got this SSD and I've had a hell of a time getting the computer to boot from the SSD even though I installed Windows 10 on it and everything. I've managed to get to the point where I can boot from the SSD if I disconnect my HDD (the original drive where Windows is installed), but that's it.

Then suddenly, after clearing the CMOS one of these days and "refreshing" the BIOS/UEFI, suddenly my SSD appeared not just as a SATA device, but also as a UEFI device. I have no idea where this change came from, but I booted from that drive and it finally worked--I booted to Windows using my SSD while my HDD was still attached. Finally, progress!

To be sure, I restarted my computer and attempted to boot again from the SSD as a UEFI device. However, the UEFI option was now gone--there was again only the SSD as a SATA device.

I again pulled out the CMOS to reset the BIOS/UEFI and again, the SSD showed up as UEFI. Again it booted just the way I wanted. Again I restarted and again the option to boot from the SSD as a UEFI device disappeared from the boot menu.

I have been unable to find any resource as to why this might be happening. Does anyone have any ideas how I can keep my SSD saved in my BIOS/UEFI permanently and why it might be disappeared after a computer restart?

EDIT FOR ADDITIONAL INFO: I also updated my BIOS within the past two weeks. It is the newest version. I use the term BIOS/UEFI interchangeably because I am not so sure of the difference--in the BIOS menu, it says "ASRock UEFI Setup Utility," so perhaps I am only referring to UEFI. I have installed Windows 10 on my SSD via an ISO USB.

 

[CountMike]

It would show as UEFI if OS is installed in that (and not in legacy) mode. Check in Disk management if you have EFI partition on it.

 

[herrwizo]

I have seen this behavior on several AsRock boards from this generation. Never figured out why UEFI boot mode appears and dissapears, though, but the most common cause for boot issues the fact that windows 10 got installed on SSD while there was a HDD physically connected during the installation as well - that's not the way to do it, you need to install windows 10 to SSD without anything else connected, or you can end up having a boot loader on regular HDD and data on SSD. So it gets impossible to boot from SSD if regular HDD is not present.

In many cases this can be fixed, though, by using Windows boot media and performing startup repair, with only SSD connected.

Make sure your HDD does not contain any Windows recovery partitions or other non-data partitions afterwards.

 

[CountMike]

It's possible to convert W10 to GPT/UEFI mode without loosing any data: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-convert-mbr-disk-gpt-move-bios-uefi-windows-10

 

[SkyNetRising]

Does anyone have any ideas how I can keep my SSD saved in my BIOS/UEFI permanently and why it might be disappeared after a computer restart?

May have some ideas.
Can you show screenshot from Disk Management first?

 

[oddsock10709]

Does anyone have any ideas how I can keep my SSD saved in my BIOS/UEFI permanently and why it might be disappeared after a computer restart?

May have some ideas.
Can you show screenshot from Disk Management first?

Hello Skynet,

I am currently away from my computer but when I am able, I will get you the screenshots you are requesting. I will also look into making sure the partition is EFI.

herrwizo, thank you for your input as well. I think the first one or two times I tried installing Windows 10 on the SSD I made that mistake, but many times I had the HDD removed completely and formatted/installed W10 on the SSD, still to no effect. I will always keep the HDD out when installing W10 on the SSD now, but I am just sharing this as information that probably (and unfortunately) this isn't the culprit.

I've attached the screenshot from Disk Management immediately after installing W10 on my SSD. My HDD is not attached. The 14GB drive is my USB wit W10 ISO on it. I ask your greatest forgiveness for providing a screenshot in the form of a picture of my monitor taken from my camera phone--I did this only because I do not have internet access from my desktop after installing Windows, so the easiest thing for me to do is take a picture of the screen.

I also wanted to add that I've been researching AHCI vs IDE and disabling CSM. when I've tried disabling CSM, I get the following error when booting:
The VBIOS of your discrete VGA card does not support UEFI GOP, so it can not support “Ultra Fast Boot” and “CSM Disable”.

Therefore, I'm not pursuing it any longer. I've set the drives to AHCI since it's supposed to be superior (it was always IDE before) so we will see how that goes. Previously, they were set to IDE and that is when I got the UEFI boot option--perhaps AHCI will eliminate that, or perhaps it will complicate things more. Nothing I can do except find out by testing.

EDIT 2: I just shut down my computer and removed the USB boot disk. I then booted from SSD. I now get a "Reboot and Select proper Boot Device" error. No idea why this is happening. Reverting to IDE did not change anything. The SSD is GPT formatted--I checked in DISKPART when booting from USB and using command prompt.

EDIT 3: I once more reinstalled Windows but this time when installing and now at my desktop, the screen is hi-res and not in a small, low-res box with black edges. I have an updated shot of my Disk Management screen:

I am not sure why now the screen is so hi-res. My GPU is currently removed from the computer. CSM is enabled and my drives are formatted as AHCI. The only difference was that when I was installing W10 and it rebooted as part of the process, I hit F11 and booted from the USB in UEFI mode again, then installed W10 again (which I do by removing all partitions from the drive and then installing).

Now I just rebooted and attempted to boot from my SSD (labeled as AHCI drive). I get the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" screen. What the heck? It had just installed and was running so nicely, why when I reboot does it suddenly go to heck and act as if W10 doesn't exist on the SSD?

EDIT 4: I noticed that if I restart my computer and try to boot from my SSD, I get the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" screen. HOWEVER, if I boot from the USB in UEFI mode and then go to Repair My Computer > Continue (Exit and continue to Windows 10), my computer goes to the home screen and works no problemo. So for some reason, booting from the ISO USB, and then continuing to W10 via the Repair menu somehow works. Any idea why that is?

 

[oddsock10709]

Hi all, I have added some additional details to my most recent post. Would you kindly let me know what you think? After EDIT 4, I reinstalled Windows on the SSD and now I'm back to where I was--able to get to the desktop but still only by booting from the USB and then Repair > Exit and Continue.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Everything looks good there. System is installed in UEFI mode and that's the only way it can boot (windows boot manager boot entry in BIOS). In legacy mode your system will not boot, so do not disable UEFI.
SATA controller must be in AHCI mode. Did you have this setting, when you reinstalled windows last time? Don't change it to IDE or RAID or you'll have to reinstall.

So - can your system boot without any USB FLASH disks or not?

If not, then here's what you have to do:
Boot from windows installation media into command prompt and execute:

• diskpart
  list disk
  select disk 0
  list partition
  select partition x (x - number of 100MB EFI System partition, could be 2 or 3)
  assign letter=h (assign free drive letter, used letter h: here)
  exit
  bcdboot c:\windows /s h:

Shutdown, remove USB flash disk and reboot.
Your system should be able to boot normally now.

 

[oddsock10709]

Everything looks good there. System is installed in UEFI mode and that's the only way it can boot (windows boot manager boot entry in BIOS). In legacy mode your system will not boot, so do not disable UEFI.
SATA controller must be in AHCI mode. Did you have this setting, when you reinstalled windows last time? Don't change it to IDE or RAID or you'll have to reinstall.

So - can your system boot without any USB FLASH disks or not?

If not, then here's what you have to do:
Boot from windows installation media into command prompt and execute:

• diskpart
  list disk
  select disk 0
  list partition
  select partition x (x - number of 100MB EFI System partition, could be 2 or 3)
  assign letter=h (assign free drive letter, used letter h: here)
  exit
  bcdboot c:\windows /s h:

Shutdown, remove USB flash disk and reboot.
Your system should be able to boot normally now.

Hi SkynetRising, I attempted these directions and came up against a few obstacles but I would like to share my results with you:

Attempt 1: I did exactly as you said. Upon reboot and selecting the SSD (labeled as an AHCI drive, keep in mind), I still got the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device" screen.

Attempt 2: I tried again with your directions, but this time I made sure AFTER completing them to disable CSM upon bootup. This caused the SSD to disappear from the boot options as usual, so instead I chose the only option--Windows Boot Manager. This got me to a home screen but after logging in, I just got a black screen. I was able to open the Task Manager and use mouse & keyboard, but the screen always remained blank.

I rebooted and re-enabled CSM, then attempted to boot from the SSD. Still "Reboot and Select."

I rebooted and selected to boot from Windows Boot Manager. This got me to my home screen, I logged in, and now it appears to be working normally. This is very strange to me because nowhere has anyone mentioned booting from the Boot Manager.

I am very curious to have your thoughts on this. If this is stable, my next step is to re-install my GPU and then HDD so I can remove Windows off it and start wiping it/porting things over. Before I do this I'd love to have your input.

EDIT: If I haven't already answered your question with the details in my steps, I cannot boot from the SSD without going through the USB flash disk first, unless I use the Windows Boot Manager apparently. I also made sure that the SSD was in AHCI mode before installing Windows on it--at least, I made as sure as I could.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Windows Boot Manager is UEFI boot entry.
Since your system is installed in UEFI, that's gonna be the only option that allows booting your system.

Can you show photo of Boot Option Priorities from BIOS?

 

[oddsock10709]

Windows Boot Manager is UEFI boot entry.
Since your system is installed in UEFI, that's gonna be the only option that allows booting your system.

Can you show photo of Boot Option Priorities from BIOS?

Here is the boot priority which I have now set up so Windows Boot Manager is first:

So you're telling me that I've been booting from the wrong place all along--that I should have been booting from Windows Boot Manager, not my SSD? If so, mind = blown.

Since this seems to be working very well, I am going to attempt reinstalling my GPU and HDD. Hopefully Windows Boot Manager will choose the SSD to boot from. If not, I suppose I can try erasing the System partition from the HDD--what do you think of that?

I have backed up my HDD to an external drive so even if all goes to hell, I can just wipe the HDD and reinstall things on it.

Please kindly let me know what you think. I am really surprised that my issue started with the SSD showing as UEFI only once after CMOS reset and now my solution has taken me somewhere completely different...

 

[SkyNetRising]

Windows Boot manager is installed in EFI System partition. It's just a fancy name for UEFI boot.
You're still booting from SSD.

And you can disable secondary boot option.

 

[oddsock10709]

Windows Boot manager is installed in EFI System partition. It's just a fancy name for UEFI boot.
You're still booting from SSD.

And you can disable secondary boot option.

Thanks for all the help SkyNetRising. I popped my GPU and HDD back in, everything seems to run just as I'd like. Finally, I can get back to using my computer

I'd like to give you credit for finding the answer, but in all these posts there's not a single one that I say was the actual solution to the problem--rather, it was the result of an ongoing troubleshooting conversation. Here's what I believe the solution was:

1) Remove HDD prior to installing Windows on SSD
2) Switch storage/drive configuration from IDE to AHCI prior to installing Windows on SSD
3) Disable CSM if possible--this may not work for you and did not work for me, but in the end this was not mandatory for this solution
4) Remove Windows installation drive (disk or USB) after setup
5) Set boot priority to Windows Boot Manager -- computer should boot from SSD
6) Reinstall HDD and maintain booting from Windows Boot Manager
7) Computer should maintain booting from SSD and all should be well.

A couple notes maybe worth clarifying:
Is it important that my SSD was GPT formatted?
Was selecting the System partition and assigning it a separate drive letter necessary?

I'm going to mark your previous comment about booting from Windows Boot Manager as the solution to this issue. Thank you

 

[CountMike]

GPT is important for UEFI installation and since you apparently installed in legacy BIOS mode, it doesn't matter.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Is it important that my SSD was GPT formatted?
Was selecting the System partition and assigning it a separate drive letter necessary?

UEFI mode requires boot drive to be partitioned in GPT. So yes - this is important.

With assigning drive letter to bootloader partition, you can specify bcdboot command, where to place bootloader files. If you omit this info, then the command tries to automatically locate bootloader partition. There are situations, when this doesn't work correctly.

BTW - you can remove drive letter from bootloader partition after fixing is done. Drive letter is not needed anymore.