Setup Installation :: BIOS Boot Priority / Windows Loading Off Different Drive
Mar 10, 2013
Re-install windows 8 with new motherboard and CPU
I ended up managed to be able to boot into windows after i swapped out my motherboard and CPU to the new ones and everything seems to be working as it should, windows automatically installed the intel drivers and all my old programs and settings are there perfectly.
I can only boot into windows if i select my backup drive as #1 boot device in the BIOS, the SSD isnt even on the list.
The thing I don't understand lies in that, if i select my SSD as priority, where the directory of windows is installed, i get a bootmgr missing error - I've tried the various methods of recovering this using the cmd and a windows installation disc.
This isn't a huge issue but it's really tripping me out as to why this is occurring? I initially had some issues getting windows to boot so i installed a clean windows8 on this backup drive, i didnt change any settings at all. was only making sure that the SSD was being recognized and i hadn't corrupted it somehow. is it possible that the backup drive boot manager is directing it to the SSD.
I wanted to do a fresh windows 8.1 install (i have a samsung NP500P4C-T03CL notebook with windows 8 OEM preinstalled and when i updated to 8.1 the system went slow and "faily"). So i put the CD on the drive, but for my suprise when i reboted the system to enter the BIOS the F2 key didn't do the job, nor it appeared on the splash screen on samsung. After googling a lot and under trial/error concept i could enter the BIOS via Shift+Restart.
I did some changes to the BIOS booting set-up and noticed i have 2 Windows Boot Manager, the CD, the HDD and one option called "SETUP" that has a "!" ("!3.Setup"). So i tried every combination posible with Secure boot unabled, and UEFI+CSM OS, also with UEFI disabled, and none gave me the option to enter bios with F2, or recovery with F4. I managed to install win7 on another HDD. Main thing, besides the F2, F4, F8, F9, F12 (yes i prove all of them, even ESC), is that whenever i change the boot order it's not saved, and it is restablished to:
1. Windows Boot Manager 2. Windows Boot Manager 3. Setup 4. HDD 5. CD
Also i noticed that on the password options the one for the HDD appears grayed and as "FROZEN". I entered user and supervisor password, neither cleared the HDD one. i want to keep the BIOS update as a last resort. clearly it's not hdd related as the same thing happened when i tried another hdd with win7).
I have just bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop. Before installing everything I wanted to partition the hard drive, for various reasons. To do so, I installed EASUS Pro. (Have used that many, many times on my W7 PC without a problem.) Anyway, it went away to resize the boot partition and now I can't do a !@#%$ing thing. The laptop boots to a 0xc0000225 error screen, and that's it. I entered the UEFI Firmware Settings, and managed to firstly change the fn keys to standard (YAY!) but I CANNOT use the F10 key to save the boot priority to CD/DVD or anything else, so I have nowhere to go from there.
The computer is an ACER Aspire 3. 4Gb RAM. 500Gb memory.
I've been using the computer for a month and a half more or less and everything went OK only few small problems but 2 days ago. It did not Boot.When starting the PC the following appeared:
Recovery Your PC needs to be repaired
The boot configuration data file is missing some required information. File:BCD Error code: 0x000000d You'll need to use the recovery tools on your.....
The first thing I did was creating a bootable USB with Windows 8 software, it did not work. SO i used Rufus, it worked and launched the Windows 8 installation and recovery but when I tried to recover, refresh, anything it told me the disk was locked... or anything the only thing I'm able to access is Command Prompt.
I've been trying some commands that I've seen online but no luck so far. Some commands tell me "OK, successfully something" But when reboot and I change to default the boot order and UEFI then the same error appears.
Yesterday, after many, many problems with my computer, I finally decided to reinstall Windows 8.1 Pro onto my ASUS X200CA netbook. However, after backing up and reinstalling the OS, I found that when I tried to disable "Launch CSM" in my BIOS, all of my boot options would disappear and my laptop would continually boot into my BIOS. When I re-enabled "Launch CSM", the boot options would reappear - however, it had not included the "Option #1 - Windows Boot Manager" that I had seen in my other installation.
It has an ASUS M2N-E motherboard with an old single core AMD Athlon 64 (I cannot remember which model specifically).
Last week, I provided him with a couple of old HDDs and 8GB worth PC-5300 DDR2 667 MHz RAM. We also installed Windows 8.1 64-bit, and other than the CPU being a single core and a bit slow, things were proceeding relatively smoothly.
He has an NVIDIA Geforce 8500 on the board, and he's ordered a PNY-made Geforce GTX 650 that's on it's way at present.
He's wanting to upgrade the CPU to the AMD PHENOM X4 9950, so we've been periodically meeting over the past couple of weeks to perform surgery on this old machine.
At any rate, we found that to update the CPU, we needed to update his BIOS from the one that was installed, which was at revision 0502. The needed BIOS revision for the CPU was 1504, but would also work with revision 1701.
After jumping through several hoops to update the BIOS, we updated it to 1701. However, since then the machine will not boot into Windows 8.1. He gets an instant BSOD. I did not see the error code, so I cannot say what it was. He told me that he's attempted to do a repair install to no avail. The repair attempt results in a constant loop of the machine rebooting and BSODing.
At any rate, here are some URLs that detail the board specs and the list of BIOS revisions for that board.
Motherboard Specs: Motherboards - M2N-E - ASUS CPU Compatibility list: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- CPU Support M2N-E
I had a bit of a problem with Malware which led me to reinstall windows 8. I had also at the time been trying to install Linux to dual boot beside it. However, upon reinstalling I got the annoying watermark saying "Secureboot isn't configured correctly." Having decided I would rather remove the watermark and having gone back into the BIOS (with a reinstall) and trying to enable secure boot I get a message - "CSM is Loaded! Disable the CSM via Setup and repeat operation after Restart".
However there is, as far a I can see no option to disable the CSM in my bios - I've tried disabling anything related to Legacy and reinstalling both Ubuntu and Windows 8 as well as wiping the drive and jumping the CMOS as well as updating the BIOS.
I've tried every permutation in the BIOS. Could possibly be an incompatibility with graphics card, but wouldn't know where to start on that end if it is.
Will it be possible to boot Windows 8 from a GPT partition using BIOS (not UEFI)? I'll be using the 64bit version.
Technically, I know it's possible as I'm doing it with FreeBSD, many Linux distros etc. Using hybrid MBR/GPT, I've read others have Win7 booting off GPT partitons as all. I'd rather not go that route.
These are the steps I've taken-- OS Win 8, pre-installed by Acer.
1) Make recovery USB using the Acer recovery wizard, with the laptop in stock configuration.
2) Install msata as secondary drive
3) Go to Computer management and initialize the msata and format with GPT style. Format the drive, assign a drive letter. (I only see 1 partition). I did this as NTFS/default allocation size. Is this where I went wrong?
4) Remove the factory HDD (listed as HDD0 in BIOS)
5) Boot to BIOS 5a) in BIOS, disable secure boot. 5b) Go to legacy mode 5c) Set msata (HDD1 in BIOS) as #1 in boot order
6) boot to USB recovery drive, follow steps to restore from USB (clean install, make partitions as it wants)
7) remove USB, reboot.
Error message-- no bootable device. I can basically load the USB again or the BIOS.
Used to run Win 7 on our main drive, and used a second one for storage (mainly games), however something happened, making us unable to boot. So we decided to upgrade to Windows 8, which we put on our secondary drive, and that's now the main one (boots from here, is Disk 0). When I turn on the PC, it asks me whether to run on Windows 7 or 8 (8 is the default). C: contains Windows 8, D: Contains Win 7.
MAIN PROBLEM: Since we're going to use the old main drive as storage (the one with Windows 7), I wanted to format it, but it won't let me because, I suppose, of the System files still on it (System, Active). Picture of Disk Management below. How do I format it?
If I remove the boot drive from my old Windows 7 computer and put it into my new Windows 8 computer, how can I set up the new computer to allow dual boot at start-up?
I am planning on building a new computer, and I want to put a 250GB SSD (Samsung 840 EVO) in it to use with 8.1 Pro. However, most of the programs and data I need are still on the old computer's boot drive, specifically all of my STEAM games (none of which I have the DVDs for.)
My question is if I can create symlinks to the old boot drive without losing data on it. This will most likely be a temporary measure, as the drive's a fairly slow 5900RPM Barracuda, and I want something faster, but I can't afford a better one just yet...
Ok, I'm up the wall on this, I'm trying to get a copy of Windows to install on a flash drive and boot from BIOS, but there's almost now way of doing so.
I remembered that Windows 8 7850 build had or has a feature called Portable Workspace where Windows will install onto a flash drive so you can take it to any puter you please. That's great and all, but where in the blue hell is it?! :stomp: It's like it's not there. Do I need something special to do something to it or what?
I'm trying to install windows 8.1 on a sony vaio E series laptop which had windows 8 preloaded on it. I made a bootable usb thumb drive with Windows USB CD/DVD Download tool. When i try to boot through the pdrive it doesn't boot. I selected the option to boot from external device and selected the boot mode as UEFI. But it doesnot go into the windows 8.1 setup.
Then i selected the legacy mode and started the setup but it booted into the 8.1 setup. I formatted the C: Drive and selected that partition to install windows 8.1 on it but it showed mean an error showing that the partition is of GPT style and windows cannot install. I was doomed...
it happens because it is not booted in the UEFI mode and then i tried again but it doesnot go into the windows setup and shows a black screen with the notification that no operating system was found.
I built a large desktop system a few years back and it's been upgraded with various bits and pieces including an SSD boot drive. I'm looking at putting together a much smaller system in a Shuttle XH61V and I want to use my existing 2.5" SSD. Can I just put the SSD in and clean install Win 8 from the original system builder disk I bought or will something go wrong because there's already an installation on the drive?
For some reason, Windows 8.1. downloader package refuses to see my 8GB SanDisk flash drive as a target for creating bootable Windows 8.1 installer USB media. A 16GB Patriot drive is detected and processed properly, but 8GB SanDisk is ignored. The same is true for the Windows 7 USB/DVD tool.
What could be causing this?
When I create the media on the 16GB drive, only 3+GB is used, which means that 8GB drive should be sufficiently large.
UPDATE: It appears that the SanDisk drive is not detected as "removable", so neither Windows 8 downloader nor Windows 7 USB/DVD tool see it as a valid target. There are quite a few reports of that issue on the Net. So, how do I create a bootable Windows 8.1 install media from that SanDisk drive?
I have a Dell Inspiron 7720 Win 8 x64 PC which includes UEFI (described in Microsoft link below). However, UEFI is accessed on Win 8 from Settings Charm > "Change PC Settings". This requires that you have booted the system already. In case of a main disk crash, you need to boot from another drive, like a thumb drive.
During restart my Dell PC displays "F12 Boot Options" in lower right of screen during restart, but multiple presses of F12 during startup are ignored. Likewise when I try F1 or F2 during startup. So I have no way to specify an alternate boot drive.
I am thinking maybe my PC is defective, but also maybe I'm missing something. What is UEFI? - Microsoft Windows Support
Today, I restart my PC and now it refuses to load Windows. I have changed nothing recently, neither in BIOS nor software. It was a simple, routine restart and it hasn't worked since. I even tried re-imaging my primary drive from 1 month ago (after trying more recent images) and I still have the issue. In BIOS, all drives are recognized, bootable discs work fine. I tried resetting the BIOS just in case to no avail. Also tried disconnecting all USB devices, no good. I can't even get Linux to load, so I am suspecting my SSD might be shot--but it shows fine in BIOS. I don't mind replacing the drive, but I want to be more certain that is the issue before I spend the money. Or would this possibly be a motherboard issue?
I set myself up as System Administrator during installation. When I try to load the software from CD for a 5510 HP printer I get an error saying I cannot do it because I am not a System Administrator. I have verified that my profile show me with that designation.
My problem is that I want to install a higher version of win 8, respectivily win 8 pro in a computer that already came with another version of win preinstalled (win 8.1). It's possible to do this in a bios that prevents csm launch.
I just bought a copy of Acronis True Image 2013 with Plus Pack. It appears that this is all I need as True Image will install the new motherboard drivers as part of the migration process. But do I stay with MBR or move to GPT?
Presently both Win7 (on a 120GB SSD drive) and Windows 8 (on a different 120GB SSD drive) are both MBR format. I don't want to start over from scratch. That's why I bought the Acronis 2013 with Plus Pack.
I am running windows 8 pro in a Intel i5 3470 + Gigabyte B75M-D3H system with UEFI bios .
I have two drives OS drive is a SSD & a 1 tb HDD with two partitions.
I am removing the SSD & want to transfer OS to one of the partitions on the HDD , the issue is boot files on the small 350mb system reserved partition on the OS drive , not sure how to transfer this partition or if this partion in on the SSD or the HDD.
This what my drives look like , C: is SSD :
Before i installed the SSD , I was running win 7 from the HDD installed in the 170 gb partition , to install the SSD i had to remove the HDD then do a fresh install of win 8 on the SSD & connected the HDD back later ,
The 170gb HDD partition is still untouched & has the old OS files , I want to transfer the SSD partition back to this 170gb partition i.e drive F: in the above pic . I am not sure how to transfer it & what to do with the system reserved partition .
I just built a desktop with a sabertooth x79 motherboard, and am running Windows 8.1 pro 64-bit. When I click the UEFI BIOS Firmware live tile via the change PC settings>update and recovery>recovery>etc. my computer reboots normally to Windows and will not open BIOS. I have tried accessing it using the delete and f2 keys, but this does nothing either.
I am up to date in terms of my BIOS, and am definitely running UEFI and not legacy.
I have windows 8.1 installed on 120gb ssd. I also have a 1tb HDD too. So I was trying to install Hackintosh/Linux when I noticed that the System Reserved partition was on my HDD instead of the SSD. So, I used easybtc to migrate my boot files to my SSD. I deleted the system reserved partition. Now I want to convert my BIOS to UEFI. I have Z87 pro mobo.
I tried this tutorial: [URL] ....
But it seems to be geared at the C drive, where I don't have room for that 350mb as disk utility wont let me shrink it.
Edit: would downloading a third party partitioner, shrinking C about 350mb, or whatever is the minimum, and then use that new space as described in the guide work?
Have just purchased this; HP Pavilion g6-2210sa 15.6" Laptop - Red Deals | Pcworld Upon hearing that I was up for the challenge of setting it up myself, the sales assistant pointed out that the very first thing I must do is back up the OS (windows 8).
I asked, 'oh, is the OS on a hidden partition?' .. and he said no, its in the BIOS. And I only have one chance to make a back-up copy, as soon as I switch on. Also; if I have software issues after that point, but haven't backed up the OS, I can't claim it under the manufacturer's warranty as an issue.
I believe that the .. key? .. is in the bios now, so I never have to worry about losing it, but apart from that .. egad.
Is there an auto-prompt, or do I need to do a regular ol' back-up .. and where do I back it up to, a separate hard drive/dvd etc?
So. I have this shiny, new, laptop. In it's shiny, new, unopened box, right now. And am starting to wonder if I should have coughed up the £50 to get 'em to set it up for me..!
I just got a FM2-A75MA-E35 motherboard and a installing Windows 8 on a freshly formatted SATA HDD. My BIOS see's the drive and has it second in the boot order, just after the DVD-ROM drive. It has a label with the drive serial number and everything, along with the drive being 'enabled' in BIOS. When I get up to the spot to choose what drive to install Windows to, its says 'No drives were found, please select a storage driver'. I found that it shows C: when I browse for drivers. Why this isn't working?
I have a Dell inspirion 15 laptop running Windows 8.1. A while ago I decided to try Ubuntu out. I installed it alongside Windows 8.1 in dual boot configuration with its own separate hard drive partitions. This means that when I powered on my laptop a GRUB menu (Linux boot manager) would come up allowing me to choose between Windows and Ubuntu. However, Ubuntu was more pain than it was worth so I decided to uninstall it. I did this by deleting the hard drive partitions that Ubuntu was installed on using Windows Disk Management. Now when I power on my laptop the GRUB menu still comes up but there are no options to choose from, only a command line interface. I now have to type Code: exit
which exits GRUB and takes me to my BIOS Boot Manager which looks like this:
Boot mode is set to: UEFI; Secure boot: OFF
UEFI BOOT ubuntu (ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB) UEFI Onboard LAN IPv6 UEFI Onboard LAN IPv4 Ubuntu (ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB) Windows Boot Manager (ST500LM012 HN-M500MBB)
I then have to select Windows Boot Manager to boot into windows.
Why GRUB is still there even though I have deleted the Linux hard drive partitions? Also, why is Ubuntu still listed on the BIOS Boot options? And why is it listed twice?
Will updating my BIOS changs the date of installation? If not, does the BIOS need to be replaced for this to occur? I am trying to apply to a job but their software is telling them my computer is too old. I've checked and the date they are showing is the BIOS date exactly.
Right before I performed a clean install of Windows 8.1 x64 on my Inspiron 3520, I switched to the Legacy BIOS *facepalm*.
When I enter the legacy BIOS and enabled "secure boot", I performed a restart that gave the following message "internal hard disk drive not found, to resolve this issue, try to reseat the drive. No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 enter setup menu, F5 enter PSA". Of course, when I go back into the BIOS and disable secure boot, it reverts back to legacy and boots up Windows 8 just fine. What I'd like to know is, how can I revert back to UEFI so I can change the boot-up option and perform a clean install under UEFI.
