SSD is being picked up by BIOS but it won't boot

[MatchewR]

I'm not entirely sure what is going on, or what the problem is... 

My SSD is being picked up by the BIOS, but it will not boot, and everything is set to how it needs to be in BIOS settings.

 

Upon booting the PC, it gives the message "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key."

I barely know what I'm doing, so I researched things and tried different settings in the BIOS, but then reset it back to where it was.

 

I would think there would be a problem with the SSD but it's being read in the BIOS.

Is it the motherboard?

The SATA ports?

Broken SSD?

Improper BIOS settings?

Something else?

 

Thank you for your time!

 

[badreg]

Assuming that your SSD is the selected boot device, is there actually a bootable partition on it? Does it boot on another machine?

[Princess Luna]

What windows install is it on it? was it installed on this system or are you trying to straight boot using an older install?

[MatchewR]

4 minutes ago, badreg said:

Assuming that your SSD is the selected boot device, is there actually a bootable partition on it? Does it boot on another machine?

It is the selected Boot device. It's what I booted the OS off of when I first built it, so I'm guessing there's a bootable partition? And I will have to try it on a different machine to test it

[MatchewR]

15 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

What windows install is it on it? was it installed on this system or are you trying to straight boot using an older install?

Windows 10. It was installed on this system

[badreg]

2 minutes ago, MatchewR said:

It is the selected Boot device. It's what I booted the OS off of when I first built it, so I'm guessing there's a bootable partition? And I will have to try it on a different machine to test it

Did you used to have another storage drive that has since been removed? Or is this SSD the only drive that was connected when you initially installed Windows?

[MatchewR]

36 minutes ago, badreg said:

Did you used to have another storage drive that has since been removed? Or is this SSD the only drive that was connected when you initially installed Windows?

This whole problem just started happening out of nowhere after I moved my PC to another house.

There are 3 drives.

When SSD and HDD1 are both connected, it says "An operating system wasn't found." 

When just the SSD is connected, it says "Reboot and Select proper Boot device", and it says the same thing when SSD and HDD2 are both connected.

Does that have anything to do with it?

[badreg]

50 minutes ago, MatchewR said:

 

Sounds like the OS and the EFI (boot partition) are on different drives. What happens when all three are connected?

[MatchewR]

3 hours ago, badreg said:

Sounds like the OS and the EFI (boot partition) are on different drives. What happens when all three are connected?

It says "An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an operating system."

[badreg]

21 minutes ago, MatchewR said:

It says "An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an operating system."

Try CSM both on and off, and try booting to each of your drives in both modes. Hopefully one of those six combinations will work. If not, it's time for a fresh install.

 

The good news is that your hardware sounds like it's fine.

[MatchewR]

40 minutes ago, badreg said:

Try CSM both on and off, and try booting to each of your drives in both modes. Hopefully one of those six combinations will work. If not, it's time for a fresh install.

 

The good news is that your hardware sounds like it's fine.

Okay, so in BIOS Features, edit the Legacy settings? I'm sure I just need a fresh install to be honest. After three days and zero progress, I think that's all it is.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, MatchewR said:

Okay, so in BIOS Features, edit the Legacy settings? I'm sure I just need a fresh install to be honest. After three days and zero progress, I think that's all it is.

If the OS was originally installed on a system with CSM ON (Legacy on), then it has to stay on unless you do MBR2GPT and switch to UEFI boot. Once it's in UEFI, mode, you're not out of the woods. 

 

If the OS was installed in RAID (Intel RST) mode, then Windows needs the RST driver installed. You'd need to install it from safeboot. However it does not appear to be getting that far, and it's more likely the UEFI/Legacy switch that you need to toggle.

 

The more or less correct way to solve this is to unplug all drives but the drive you want to boot from, go back into the BIOS and select the only drive, ensure Windows boots, and then plug everything back in. Then if you want to switch to UEFI mode proper, follow the correct steps to do so by making sure the RAID or AHCI mode matches the driver in the OS, and then do (MBR2GPT, Switch BIOS to UEFI mode, turn legacy CSM off.) Under UEFI, if there's a UEFI boot partition on the drive, it will be updated in the BIOS the first time it boots in UEFI mode and you don't have to fiddle with it further. If you continue to boot it in legacy mode, then other drives plugged in can "pre-empt" the boot drive depending on the boot order. So leaving a disc or usb drive plugged in that is marked "bootable" but lacks a working bootloader will do what you've seen if there are no bootable drives.

[MatchewR]

UPDATE: All I needed was a fresh OS install. I'm not sure why my old SSD would do this, but now we have a new storage system and OS installed. Thank you everyone for the help. Especially badreg and Kisai. I learned alot haha