# Boot Emergency!



## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

My computer will not select the correct drive to boot from. I went to the bios and tried to select the priority but the drive doesn't show! However when I hold F8 and select it she boots fine. The only changes I have made was a small update from Microsoft and I started using Ready Boost. Both of which I have now removed and am still having the same problem.

The damn windows disk doesn't even see it!

WTF happen!


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## erocker (Nov 8, 2010)

Drive could be on its way out. I had a similar problem with a drive that was just too slow to initialize in time for the bios to pick it up.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

erocker said:


> Drive could be on its way out. I had a similar problem with a drive that was just too slow to initialize in time for the bios to pick it up.



Shit the damn thing is a year old. Hmmmm If I reformat the bitch and install a new OS and the problem happens again then the drives dead/dying. OR if I reinstall again and it fixes it maybe it was a corrupt file?

I mean if it were dying and slow why wouldn't the windows disk at least see it?


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## sneekypeet (Nov 8, 2010)

I assume you have tried a new SATA cable or tried hooking it to a different SATA port on the mobo?


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

sneekypeet said:


> I assume you have tried a new SATA cable or tried hooking it to a different SATA port on the mobo?



No. I did check the connections and everything was fine. I mean I'm replying on it now. If the port was bad there would be no chance to connect. Am I right?


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## sneekypeet (Nov 8, 2010)

I didnt realize you were on said PC, you are correct!


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

I'm going to do a backup now and reinstall. I hate when this kinda crap happens. I have a damn deadline!


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## erocker (Nov 8, 2010)

If it's the same problem I had, a reinstall isn't going to make any difference. RMA the drive.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

Update. I am copying everything over now and it says its going to take 23 hours! Its only 70 gigs.


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## animal007uk (Nov 8, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Update. I am copying everything over now and it says its going to take 23 hours! Its only 70 gigs.



Damn that could also be a sign of the drive failing. If the drive is ok remember to remove all other drives when installing windows (if your using win 7 that is) or it tends to stick the boot info on other drives lol.

Good luck getting it sorted.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Nov 8, 2010)

Copying how? It shouldn't take that long. The meter doesn't know shit. 

Note that if you have a Western Digital drive in your system you can download Acronis True Image Home for free from WD. Make an image or clone to another disk if you have one so you don't have to reinstall everything from scratch. This will allow you to test the drive further without fear of data loss as well.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

animal007uk said:


> Damn that could also be a sign of the drive failing. If the drive is ok remember to remove all other drives when installing windows (if your using win 7 that is) or it tends to stick the boot info on other drives lol.
> 
> Good luck getting it sorted.



A normal format should do it right? OR do I have to do a low level?


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## animal007uk (Nov 8, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> A normal format should do it right? OR do I have to do a low level?



If you feel there might be a problem with the drive then i would do a normal format because a low level format seems to put more stress on the drive and it can take hours to depending on the program.

I used disk wizard maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago on my 250gig drive and it took roughly 2 hours.

If you feel the drive might be ok then a low level format might do it some good.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

No I'm just concerned about the boot drivers. I want to make sure they are gone.


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## Techtu (Nov 8, 2010)

Low leveling/zeroing the drive is probably the best thing to do IMO, obviously make sure your data is backed up before doing this... I'm sure you don't need telling but ya no...  Anyways in the past I've known that zeroing a drive what may be faulty could ruin the drive all together, or make it "like new" again, so if the drive is still under warranty wouldn't you want it to die sooner rather than later? seem's much less hassle to get the job done now rather when you have all your data on the drive and to risk losing it again.


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## animal007uk (Nov 8, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> No I'm just concerned about the boot drivers. I want to make sure they are gone.



Sorry had to pop out fast lol, well if you want the boot sector on the main drive then remove all other hardrives first, this way windows 7 will put all info on the drive you want to install it on.

Best way i can explain is like this, I have 2 drives both 250 gig, If both are hooked up when i install windows 7 it seems to put the boot sector on my second drive, If i remove this second drive windows will not boot up of my main drive. So when i install windows 7 i make sure my backup drive/drives are disconected.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

Techtu said:


> Low leveling/zeroing the drive is probably the best thing to do IMO, obviously make sure your data is backed up before doing this... I'm sure you don't need telling but ya no...  Anyways in the past I've known that zeroing a drive what may be faulty could ruin the drive all together, or make it "like new" again, so if the drive is still under warranty wouldn't you want it to die sooner rather than later? seem's much less hassle to get the job done now rather when you have all your data on the drive and to risk losing it again.



The thing is I'm not even sure its the drive yet. Like I said I tried to use Ready Boost and I think it may have screwed something up.


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## animal007uk (Nov 8, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> The thing is I'm not even sure its the drive yet. Like I said I tried to use Ready Boost and I think it may have screwed something up.



With 4 gig of ram you dont need ready boost as it will do nothing at all, i tryed it myself and it was a fail. its only good if you have a low amount of ram.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

Ok heres an update. I reinstalled windows and everything works fine.......BUT now I cannot see my backup drive. It shows up in device manager just not in the os. WTF!


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## Tatty_One (Nov 8, 2010)

Go to Ms config and see if it is showing in the boot list.


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## Techtu (Nov 8, 2010)

Open the start menu and in the search type "computer management" and click on that once found, now in the new window, the list on the left says "storage/Disk Management" Click on disk management and you'll see a list of your drives, the drive you can not see may need to be activated, you can do this by simply right clicking the correct disk and activating.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Go to Ms config and see if it is showing in the boot list.


 No it doesnt show. Only my OS drive.



Techtu said:


> Open the start menu and in the search type "computer management" and click on that once found, now in the new window, the list on the left says "storage/Disk Management" Click on disk management and you'll see a list of your drives, the drive you can not see may need to be activated, you can do this by simply right clicking the correct disk and activating.


 Its there and it says it running and normal.

Anyway I just had the same boot problem on reboot. Everything was fine 10 minutes ago. Now it wont boot without my manually selecting the drive.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 8, 2010)

Nevermind. I guess I had the boot priority screwed up in the bios. Anyway I still cant see my secondary drive. Any ideas? I just backed up everything to it before the reinstall and now I am properly screwed.


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## Techtu (Nov 8, 2010)

I'm stumped then


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## Yukikaze (Nov 8, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Nevermind. I guess I had the boot priority screwed up in the bios. Anyway I still cant see my secondary drive. Any ideas? I just backed up everything to it before the reinstall and now I am properly screwed.



I've had the exact same thing happen to me. I managed to access the HDD via Linux (booted off an Ubuntu DVD). I could access the data from there (which is a good thing), but I couldn't get windows to recognize the partition on the drive until I wiped it and created a new one (which is a bad thing).

Give it a shot.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Nov 8, 2010)

I notice since running Windows 7 my PC acts kind of wonky related to the partition map now and then requiring a Repair via F8 (and occasionally also requiring to boot from the install DVD in order to run said repair). Try it if you havent.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

UPDATE. I was able to remove most of my files off to a MAC. The only thing that wouldn't copy is the explorer favs. No big deal. Anyway I formatted both drives out and reinstalled Windows. STILL NO SECOND DRIVE. When I reboot I get the "please insert boot disk" message. Could one bad drive cause the other one not to show in the OS?

The wierd part is they both show in the bios and the both show in the device manager. I'm really stumped on this one.


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

Try this.........

Start >  Run  >  "msconfig" > "Boot.ini" tab  >  Advanced options > Tick "debug".....  restart yours may differ slightly as I am at work on XP pro, if that fails, do the same again but take out the checkbox you just did for "debug", then close advanced options and then enable "no gui boot".  Restart.... worth a try and easily reversible.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Try this.........
> 
> Start >  Run  >  "msconfig" > "Boot.ini" tab  >  Advanced options > Tick "debug".....  restart yours may differ slightly as I am at work on XP pro, if that fails, do the same again but take out the checkbox you just did for "debug", then close advanced options and then enable "no gui boot".  Restart.... worth a try and easily reversible.



Ill try it. 

However what will this do?


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ill try it.
> 
> However what will this do?



It changes hardware/feature detection methods on windows startup I think, I had a problem with multiple drives and multiple OS's once and I played with these and eventually I got the 4 boot options I was looking for from the 4 drives.

If all that fails, re-install your motherboards chipset and other driver files, that will sort it!


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## Techtu (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ill try it.
> 
> However what will this do?



I love how someone who needs help has actually asked what it will do when he changes something or other, most of us would just do it and not think twice about what it does


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> It changes hardware/feature detection methods on windows startup I think, I had a problem with multiple drives and multiple OS's once and I played with these and eventually I got the 4 boot options I was looking for from the 4 drives.
> 
> If all that fails, re-install your motherboards chipset and other driver files, that will sort it!



So you think its a driver problem? I reinstalled the OS three times.


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> So you think its a driver problem? I reinstalled the OS three times.



Sounds that way to me, at a guess it's either a windows setting..... read detection failure (hence my first suggestion) followed by possibly a driver within the chipset group of drivers (SMbus etc) not playing, a re-install of the chipset drivers is painless.


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## Radical_Edward (Nov 9, 2010)

Runs Crystal disk info if you can get to windows. If you get anything besides a "Good" score, RMA that drive.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Sounds that way to me, at a guess it's either a windows setting..... read detection failure (hence my first suggestion) followed by possibly a driver within the chipset group of drivers (SMbus etc) not playing, a re-install of the chipset drivers is painless.



The chipset drivers are on the OS right?

FYI I am not arguing. Just want to know what I am getting into. As it stand now Ill try anything


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> The chipset drivers are on the OS right?
> 
> FYI I am not arguing. Just want to know what I am getting into. As it stand now Ill try anything



No, chipset drivers are on the CD that came with the board, or visit the Asus site, search for your board (I did it 5 mins ago ) then you will see driver downloads, there is only one lot so they will be on your boards CD.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> No, chipset drivers are on the CD that came with the board, or visit the Asus site, search for your board (I did it 5 mins ago ) then you will see driver downloads, there is only one lot so they will be on your boards CD.



I understand that. What I am saying is a clean install of the OS should have dumped any corrupt drivers. UNLESS the drivers are stored else where right?


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> I understand that. What I am saying is a clean install of the OS should have dumped any corrupt drivers. UNLESS the drivers are stored else where right?



Some integrate into the OS, some have their own directory and are activated by the registry, your fresh installs would have de-activated them if you get my meaning.  You should have a directory there somewhere for Asus..... but didn't your re-installs re-format?


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## HTC (Nov 9, 2010)

If there's anything wrong physically with the disk, hdd sentinel will detect it (unless the disk is in a RAID array). You can get this prog from http://www.hdsentinel.com.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Some integrate into the OS, some have their own directory and are activated by the registry, your fresh installs would have de-activated them if you get my meaning.  You should have a directory there somewhere for Asus..... but didn't your re-installs re-format?



Oh I understand where you are going. But see the thing is this never happen before. I have reinstalled tons of times and both drives always showed. Yesterday I did a simple reboot and BAM "insert boot media". Out of the blue. The only thing that I did different was Ready Boost which I removed after the first reinstall.

By the way I format every install.


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Oh I understand where you are going. But see the thing is this never happen before. I have reinstalled tons of times and both drives always showed. Yesterday I did a simple reboot and BAM "insert boot media". Out of the blue. The only thing that I did different was Ready Boost which I removed after the first reinstall.
> 
> By the way I format every install.



So you never have the board vendors drivers then unless you re-install them each time, I get your point about not happening before but in my experience usual is not always normal is not always logical if you get my drift.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> So you never have the board vendors drivers then unless you re-install them each time, I get your point about not happening before but in my experience usual is not always normal is not always logical if you get my drift.



Well Ill give it a try if I can get into the OS. If it isnt the drivers do you think its the HD or the Mobo?


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Well Ill give it a try if I can get into the OS. If it isnt the drivers do you think its the HD or the Mobo?



Could be hardware, it's one of those tricky ones as you are gathering, have you tried booting in safe mode?  One way to seperate the OS to test vunerability of the OS is to use a DOS boot disk/pen drive, boot to dos then change directory to C: and D: in dos and if you get the command prompt then the root system detects the drives.  could be your MBR is corrupt..... damn 101 reasons!


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Ok here is an update.

What I've done:
1. I formatted the both HD's more then once from a clean format.
2. I updated the bios and set everything to default.
3. I ran hdd sentinel and both drive came back as 100% ok.
4. I switched SATA ports on the mobo to see if I had a bad port.
5. I installed the driver set from Asus

Symptoms:
1. Will not boot normally. Asks for boot disk. To get into the OS I have to manually select the HD.
2. Once in the OS it does not see my second drive. However its picked up in the bios and the device manager in the OS. Just not in "my computer".

What I'm going to do:
1. Buy a new HD to see if that fixes the issue.
2. If a new HD doesn't fix the issue Ill beg my wife for a new mobo and RAM.
3. Kick the fucking computer into a fine powder and snort it like coke and hope it gets me high enough where I won't care about losing my job over a missed deadline.


Other then that I am stumped.


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## Techtu (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Ok here is an update.
> 
> What I've done:
> 1. I formatted the both HD's more then once from a clean format.
> ...



Isn't there another computer you could swap HDD's with? for instance - install either of your current drives into another rig, install Windows see how it goes on another board and/or from the other computer (IF possible) use the HDD from that and try installing that on your rig, however I can't see it being very likely you have 2 faulty drives so the first option may be the best, or at least IMO


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

Ohh well, still dont think it's ya hardrive, if the Boot Hard drive AND OS are showing in msconfig then the last thing I can suggest is to enable the "safeboot" option, then some boxes become highlighted, select the "Minimal - alternate shell" box, apply, exit and reboot.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> Ohh well, still dont think it's ya hardrive, if the Boot Hard drive AND OS are showing in msconfig then the last thing I can suggest is to enable the "safeboot" option, then some boxes become highlighted, select the "Minimal - alternate shell" box, apply and reboot.



Ill give it a try. However I am leaning more towards my Mobo. The one thing I can afford to replace right now.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 9, 2010)

Unplug the 2nd drive and reboot. See if that works.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Unplug the 2nd drive and reboot. See if that works.



Tried that. What I'm going to do now is format both....again. Disconnect my primary drive and install on the second drive. The one that doesn't show ever.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Update.

Just disconnected my main drive and tried to install the OS on the small drive and it will not allow me into the install. All it does it boot normal then get to the blue screen were you see the birds and such and stops loading. I can move the mouse and stuff but no menu is there. Just blue birds. lol

I must have really pissed the PC gods off this week.


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## Techtu (Nov 9, 2010)

Going back to what EastCoast was saying - when you unplugged the second drive and booted up the primary drive did you still have to use F8 to select the drive to boot from?


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Techtu said:


> Going back to what EastCoast was saying - when you unplugged the second drive and booted up the primary drive did you still have to use F8 to select the drive to boot from?



Yup.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 9, 2010)

Did you unplug both the power and sata connectors on the 2nd drive?


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Did you unplug both the power and sata connectors on the 2nd drive?



Everything.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 9, 2010)

Hmm, that's odd.  I take it that you setup the bios already to boot from the primary drive.





TheMailMan78 said:


> Update.
> 
> Just disconnected my main drive and tried to install the OS on the small drive and it will not allow me into the install. All it does it boot normal then get to the blue screen were you see the birds and such and stops loading. I can move the mouse and stuff but no menu is there. Just blue birds. lol
> 
> I must have really pissed the PC gods off this week.


Did you give it a few minutes?  I know that sounds odd but give it at least 5 minutes and see if the setup screen shows up.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Hmm, that's odd.  I take it that you setup the bios already to boot from the primary drive.


Yeah.

Update:

I just let it sit and now I can install on the secondary drive. Its installing now. Who knows how long it will take. Ill keep you guys posted.


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## Techtu (Nov 9, 2010)

So I take it you are unable to install your HDD's into another rig to try install? it would point the finger at the motherboard if you was able to install and load windows from another rig with one or both of your current HDD's.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Techtu said:


> So I take it you are unable to install your HDD's into another rig to try install? it would point the finger at the motherboard if you was able to install and load windows from another rig with one or both of your current HDD's.



Sorry I didn't respond before. Thank you for the help so far. Sadly I do not have another PC to test it on. Just a lappy and a Mac.


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## Techtu (Nov 9, 2010)

Surely you could pop round your grans for half hour and use her beast of a machine? 

Maybe not your gran but you know... anyone with a PC in general who you know.


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 9, 2010)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Yeah.
> 
> Update:
> 
> I just let it sit and now I can install on the secondary drive. Its installing now. Who knows how long it will take. Ill keep you guys posted.



Is your disc OEM by any chance?


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Is your disc OEM by any chance?



Um not sure. I got it from the window 7 "party pack".

Anyway I think I solved the problem......Or should I say Erocker did. The primary drive I think is bad. I took it out and installed the OS on the secondary drive and after a long install it SEEMS to be ok. Im going to run some updates now and let her reboot a few times and Ill post back.

My question is why would one bad drive stop the second drive from showing up in the OS?


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## Millennium (Nov 9, 2010)

It might if the BIOS drive detection thing gets confused. But I've never seen it happen with SATA.

Are you using AHCI and have you tried toggling that on the dodgy drive?


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

Glad to see it looks like it's getting sorted at least


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Well it seems to be running fine off of the secondary drive. When I hook the the primary (bad drive) it says the BOOTMGR cannot be found and wont start.


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## Tatty_One (Nov 9, 2010)

OK so the secondary becomes primary (OS) and primary becomes secondary (data)...... job done!


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 9, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> OK so the secondary becomes primary (OS) and primary becomes secondary (data)...... job done!



Not exactly. The new data drive is bunk. SO Ill be heading down to the store today to buy a new one. Secondary drive needs to stay that way. Anyway whats wrong with the drive for it to say the "BOOTMGR" is missing?


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## Millennium (Nov 9, 2010)

It means the bootloader is not installed correctly AFAIK. You've tried the diagnostics from the manufacturer on it?


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## EastCoasthandle (Nov 9, 2010)

You can use a recent build of Everest (registered) if you have it.  You can use their Storage >> Smart option to see what's going on.  FYI Everest split off and there is another name called AIDA64 if you are looking for a most current build.


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## HTC (Nov 9, 2010)

HTC said:


> If there's anything wrong physically with the disk, hdd sentinel will detect it (unless the disk is in a RAID array). You can get this prog from http://www.hdsentinel.com.



Seriously, dude: try this prog.

Here's a screenie of it on my PC:







Dunno how much capped is the trial version compared to the full version (i have the full version) but trust me: this will detect any and all problems with your disk.

I had a faulty drive, a while back and this prog detected it (check attachment: it's a HTML file, zipped, in Portuguese language). As you can also see from this file, this prog has problems with RAID arrays but, other then that, it's great.


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## Techtu (Nov 10, 2010)

HTC said:


> Seriously, dude: try this prog.
> 
> Here's a screenie of it on my PC:
> 
> ...



How good are those kind of programs at judging the estimated lifespan left in the drives?



> There are 3 bad sectors on the disk surface. The contents of these sectors were moved to the spare area.
> The drive found 1 bad sectors during its self test.
> Problems occurred during the spin up of the disk 35 times. This can be caused by the disk itself or huge power load (weak power supply).
> There are 1 weak sectors found on the disk surface. They may be remapped any time in the later use of the disk.
> ...



182 day's remaining for me :/


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## HTC (Nov 10, 2010)

Techtu said:


> How good are those kind of programs at judging the estimated lifespan left in the drives?



No idea, dude.

Tbh, i'm much more interested in the monitoring of this prog. Unfortunately, i only noticed it had problems with RAID arrays *after i purchased it*, but that's my fault for not properly research it.

Still, with single HDDs, this program is, IMHO, very good and i gladly recommend it: just make sure that your HDDs are supported *before* you buy it (limited support for RAID arrays).

EDIT



Techtu said:


> 182 day's remaining for me :/



Question: did you know you had bad sectors in your HDD?


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## Techtu (Nov 10, 2010)

Nope I didn't, "check disk" doesn't detect any either.


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## HTC (Nov 10, 2010)

Techtu said:


> Nope I didn't, "check disk" doesn't detect any either.



See? You're already benefiting from checking this prog.

Since "check disk" didn't pick it up, and to be absolutely sure you *really have* bad sectors, try with other tools (google for more since i don't know of any others) but i wouldn't be surprised if you really do have bad sectors.

One of my disks also has 1 bad sector (the one in the zipped html file from post #69) and i only found out about it because of this prog.

Too bad i can't use it to check my RAID 10


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## Techtu (Nov 10, 2010)

Come to think about it, my drive does make one heck of a noise when booting 

But I'm going to take your advice and use a couple of other programs although I got a feeling I'll get similar results.



Sorry for hijacking your thread for a moment there MailMan.


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## HTC (Nov 10, 2010)

Techtu said:


> Sorry for hijacking your thread for a moment there MailMan.



Yeah: got a little carried away myself, hehe.


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## TheMailMan78 (Nov 10, 2010)

The problem with that program is it didn't pick up shit. I said that already. I replaced the "Good" drive (according to that program) with a new drive and she runs fine now. If I install the "good" drive she don't boot.


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