How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot disk?

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jeffw_00
Posts: 97
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:46 pm

How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot disk?

Post by jeffw_00 »

Hi - this is my wife's WIN7 White-box business PC. i7 with Asus B85M motherboard. Runs flawlessly, except it's recently picked up an annoying problem. The boot disk won't appear in any of the options for booting in the BiOS. Using BootitNG I can see that the boot disk is "Bootable" and Active. the auxiliary disk also shows up as "bootable" but not active, and BootitNG mentions that it may not boot WinNt properly. When I boot, I get the "booting windows" screen for several minutes, and then it boots fine. It doesn't matter if it just let it boot, or specifically select the proper boot disk - still takes minutes to come up, and the boot disk doesn't appear as a selection in any bios menus.

So how do I get the Bios to recognize the bootdisk (a recent vintage 2TB WD disk) as a boot disk?

Thanks VERY Much

/j
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1643
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Is it only that disk that boots slowly? Have you checked it for any errors, bad sectors, etc.?

Any recent BIOS or hardware changes?
jeffw_00
Posts: 97
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:46 pm

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by jeffw_00 »

It's the only boot disk on that machine (booting from DVDROM is fine). I run chkdsk on it every week and it's been clean. No BIOS or HW changes (except I replaced the memory :-}, but this predates that). I'm thinking the MBR has to be re-written or some such, but I'm not confident doing that sort of stuff blindly. What's also weird is that even though the boot disk is plugged into the 1st SATA jack on the board, it shows up in BootitNG as HD1, and the aux disk shows up as HD0(?). The Boot disk does uniquely show up as having a 100MB Boot partition. It -seems- like everything is in order, but the Bios won't recognize it.

We very rarely manually reboot the machine, and the weekly middle-of-the-night autoreboot was unaffected (doesn't matter that it took 4-5 minutes to boot), so I can't honestly say how long this situation has occurred, could be months. Clearly something on the disks got changed and I have no idea what, but I was hoping there was something BootIt could do to just fix which is why i was asking - Thanks!
Brian K
Posts: 2213
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by Brian K »

Jeff,

I have that MB in my test computer. Can you check the BIOS without any USB devices attached
Advanced Mode button
Advanced choice at top
SATA Configuration... Can you see your HD on SATA6G_1

Boot choice at top
What do you have in CSM (Compatibility Support Module)
What do you have in Secure Boot
What is Boot Option #1
jeffw_00
Posts: 97
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:46 pm

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by jeffw_00 »

Hi Brian - there are no USB storage devices attached, the HD does show up on SATA6G_1 in the SATA Configuration. I haven't touched any other bios defaults, so no secure boot, etc, and Boot Option #1 is the DVD drive, followed by (sigh) the wrong Hard drive.

However - despite the weirdness of the bios settings, it does always -find- the right hard drive, so I'm starting to wonder if I'm looking in the wrong place, and the fact that it takes 4-5 minutes to boot is a Windows thing, not a BiOs thing (i.e., maybe it doesn't take 5 min to find the right drive, maybe it finds it right away and then windows takes 5 min to boot...)- I'm running that theory down in parallel to this one, so thanks very much for any ideas you may have.
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by DrTeeth »

On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 07:27:00 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
jeffw_00 disturbed my reverie and wrote:

> so I'm starting to wonder if I'm looking in the wrong place, and the fact that it takes 4-5 minutes to boot is a Windows thing, not a BiOs thing

Simple way to find out - install another version of windows and see
what happens. Try installing a Linux distro...they do not use the BIOS
AIUI, or if they do it is different to the way windows does.

Never underestimate the diagnostic value of having a multibooting
system. Having one has helped immensely in all of my fault-finding
issues.

I once had a strange issue where windows (none of the four of them)
would not boot correctly, but all of the five Linux distros would.
Cutting a longish story short, the issue was down to a failing hard
disk - found by the running Linux version locking up when accessing
the same disk. I disconnected the disk and all windows versions booted
brilliantly.
--
Cheers,

DrT

"If you want to find out what is wrong
with democracy, spend five minutes with
the average voter." - Winston Churchill
Brian K
Posts: 2213
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by Brian K »

jeffw_00 wrote:
, and Boot Option #1 is the DVD drive,
> followed by (sigh) the wrong Hard drive.
>
Jeff,

In the Boot Option #1 line, if you click the button can you change it to the correct HD which should be P1? Make Boot Option #2 your second HD. Then Exit, Save Changes and Reset.

My DVD drive doesn't show in that list at all as a Boot Option if I don't have a a disc in the tray. Can you check if you have a disc in the tray?

Is your CSM setting, "Enabled"?
jeffw_00
Posts: 97
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:46 pm

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by jeffw_00 »

so as it turned out - it was a windows issue. IaStora was taking 5 minutes on boot (as observed in the System Event Log). I got a whiff of this when I tried a safe mode boot and it came right up. Since this is for raid, I uninstalled the Intel Rapid Storage application and not only did the boot problem go away, but the Bios identified the boot drive properly.

Thanks

/j
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by DrTeeth »

On Fri, 5 Feb 2016 14:24:09 PST, just as I was about to take a herb,
jeffw_00 disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>Since this is for raid,
It also installs the Intel SATA chipset drivers AIUI.
--
Cheers,

DrT

"If you want to find out what is wrong
with democracy, spend five minutes with
the average voter." - Winston Churchill
jeffw_00
Posts: 97
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:46 pm

Re: How do I use BootitNG to get Bios to recognize my Boot d

Post by jeffw_00 »

yeah - and since i did it I've had trouble mounting a 2nd drive - but I figured out I didn't need the 2nd drive, and everythings working for now. In the future I will re-install the latest Rapid Storage app if I need it - thanks!
/j
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