At whits end

[swayzemedia]

I am currently having a serious issue with my desktop. First and for most, allow me to list you my specs.

 

AMD FX Unlocked Black Edition 6100 Series Six Core Processor 3.3 GHz

MSI 970A - G46

8 GB of DDR3 RAM 1066 MHz

1 TB WD Blue SATA

1 TB WD Green SATA

LG Blueray Player

• BD-R SL/DL: 14X/12XDVD-R SL/DL: 16X/8XDVD+R SL/DL: 16X/8X
• CD-RW: 24X

MSI Radeon HD7770

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

 

Here is what I have been dealing with. About 2 weeks ago or so, I was getting a serious issue with my system giving me a BOOTMTR error. From the research I had done, the common things that were causing it was a virus or a trojan inside the files that deleted the BOOTMTR file. Simple solution was to run Windows Startup Repair through my install disc. So I did. What I was finding was that my drives were not showing up in the Startup Repair tool. So I rebooted, and got into my Bios. At first, neither one of my HDDs were showing in the Bios itself. So, the steps that I took to correct this issue was to plug the drives into different computers to check to see if the drives themselves were corrupt. And that was not the case. I did full diagnostics on both drives, and came back with no issues. There was no corrupt sectors, I had used different computers with different Anti-virus software. One had AVAST, one had AVG full, one had Norton, and the other had McAfee. So 4 different computer, all scanned the drives, came back clean. I then decided that I was going to go ahead and wipe the C: and do a fresh Windows install. After that was done, it worked for a couple days, then back to the same issue that I was having before. I then got into my system, cleaned everything out. Took Q-Tips and soaked one end of them in Isopropyl Alcohol and wiped all my fans down to get rid of dust off the blades, took an air to my heat sync to get the dust and other things out of the blades, cleaned the thermal paste off the processor and reapplied it, and pulled the battery out of the motherboard to reset the Bios. I then unplugged and plugged the C: into a different SATA port off the board to test to see if it was the ports off the board. I rebooted then placed the C: back into port 1. I am currently looking at my Bios for the MSI board and it shows my HDD in port 1 and my Blueray drive in port 2. But when I reboot to get into Windows, there is a massive "lag" on the board itself loading, and then I get an error of

 

"Reboot and Select proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"
 

This is starting to irritate me because I do not know how to correct this. Because now, when I run the Windows Startup Repair Tool when placing my Windows 7 disc in, I get the issue of my drives not showing at all and I cant go any further. 

 

PLEASE HELP

[Moondrelor]

I can't read shit. (DarkTheme Master Race)

[KemoKa]

look at the drive connection interface setting in the BIOS. Is it set to IDE or SATA?

[KemoKa]

I can't read shit. (DarkTheme Master Race)

Thank the OS gods for giving us the ability to highlight stuff.

Still annoying AF though. Arrgh, my eyes, it burns...

[KemoKa]

@swayzemedia Follow your topics, man.

[swayzemedia]

@swayzemedia Follow your topics, man.

Its hard to reply when you are in the bathroom. I dont take phones, tablets, notebooks, or laptops in there with me. And to answer your first reply, its SATA. This board is not THAT old. 

[swayzemedia]

And this board is not a dual BIOS board that I can think of, so there is no way to swap to a different BIOS. And the BIOS does show that the HDD and the blueray drive does show and that I can change the boot sequence through the BIOS

[LabRat]

you wouldn't happen to have raid enabled in the BIOS do you?

[swayzemedia]

you wouldn't happen to have raid enabled in the BIOS do you?

No

[LabRat]

what happens if you do a cmos reset?

 

what happens if you disconnect your extra drive?

[KemoKa]

Its hard to reply when you are in the bathroom. I dont take phones, tablets, notebooks, or laptops in there with me. And to answer your first reply, its SATA. This board is not THAT old. 

Just checking, dude. My Z77 motherboard has an option in the UEFI to change the interface to IDE. Thought it could have been that, seeing as you can only boot from the primary SATA port under an IDE interface, you know, with Master and Slave and all that jazz.

[swayzemedia]

what happens if you do a cmos reset?

 

what happens if you disconnect your extra drive?

I still get the same issue when doing a CMOS reset and the second drive is not currently installed. It is setting in a different machine since that is where all of my media is stored. Movies, music, pictures, things like that. I took that drive out last night so I can still access everything off it through my laptop

[swayzemedia]

Just checking, dude. My Z77 motherboard has an option in the UEFI to change the interface to IDE. Thought it could have been that, seeing as you can only boot from the primary SATA port under an IDE interface, you know, with Master and Slave and all that jazz.

Right now, there is no secondary drive. I took that one out last night to place it into my Team Speak server machine so I can still access the files off my laptop

[KemoKa]

Right now, there is no secondary drive. I took that one out last night to place it into my Team Speak server machine so I can still access the files off my laptop

Doesn't matter, if your ODD is plugged into the first SATA port, it would try and boot from it first under IDE. That's the first conclusion I came to. But I am as ever happy to eat my words.

[LabRat]

that's right. it may very well be looking for it in the boot order. you used to have to disable floppy's if you weren't using them. so it would be your main drive first, bluray 2nd and 3rd disabled.

[swayzemedia]

I just changed the boot order 2 or 3 different times, same issue. Disabled everything but the Blueray, the HDD and the UEFI: Built in EFI shell. Same issue. Turned everything back on and reset the BIOS to factory defaults, still same issue. Put my Windows disc back into the optical drive to check windows, windows is still not showing the drive. I even went through and checked to see what the HDD was set in and it was AHCI mode. I changed ot to RAID, same issue. Set it to IDE, still having the same issue. Even pulled the SATA cable and put it into a different port from port 1. Still having the same issue

[Indus Monk]

Let's try a BIOS update... See if that works

[LabRat]

did you try a repair install?

 

you don't want ahci you want ide.

 

did you try different ( new ) sata cables and different ports on the MB?

[swayzemedia]

did you try a repair install?

 

you don't want ahci you want ide.

 

did you try different ( new ) sata cables and different ports on the MB?

The only problem with the Repair Install is that the Windows disc is not detecting a drive. So, that fact with this issue doesnt work, sadly.

[swayzemedia]

did you try a repair install?

 

you don't want ahci you want ide.

 

did you try different ( new ) sata cables and different ports on the MB?

And when it comes to the idea of new SATA cables, I have already tried that one. When this issue first started, I swapped out the cables with new ones due to the fact that the ones that were in there when I built this system about 2 and a half years ago, I went for the cheap cables that would reflect light since all my fans in the case right now are blue LEDs. I replaced the cables to cables with locking tabs on them to make sure they were seated correctly on both the motherboard and the drives

[swayzemedia]

did you try a repair install?

 

you don't want ahci you want ide.

 

did you try different ( new ) sata cables and different ports on the MB?

And yes, I know that the cheap factor was a bad idea when it came to cables

[spaiduhz]

here is what i would do.

 

I would remove all sata connections. connect only your os hdd, im assuming your wd blue, into the sata port labeled 0. if your mobo has a chip that allows additional sata ports, avoid those ports. bios should detect it. if it doesnt, just to make sure your wb blue isnt dead, try connecting your wd green and see whether bios detects that. might be a silly thing to mention, but do ensure that you are giving juice to the hdd with its power cable.

 

now if you got your blue detected in bios, i hope you have windows iso on a thumbdrive. it should at least detect your one and only hdd in the system. perform repair as needed.

 

once you have successfully booted into windows with just that one hdd, then i would connect your green to sata1. and your blue ray to your largest numbered sata port.

 

you can set boot priority in bios, but it has happened before that when i performed a firmware update, the boot priority reset itself, and it tried to boot to the lowest numbered sata port. the next time i cleaned the insides of my PC, i changed the ports to make sure it never happened again.

[LabRat]

he didn't say he did a repair install yet. easiest thing to do right now. ( not reformat but repair  install - leave files intact )

[swayzemedia]

I have already tried running the repair tool multiple times. The problem that I am facing is that the BOOTMTR is not being detected and NEITHER of the HDDs are showing up in the Windows Startup Repair tool even though they both show up through the BIOS. They are both perfectly working drives. I have taken the HDD out of my Team Speak Server system and put the HDD from my Windows 7 machine in and it loaded perfectly. It had no issues getting to my desktop, nor did it stall out. I have ran a full on SCAN DISK on restart and there was nothing wrong with either of the drives. I even ran a detailed Defrag and did not find any corrupt sectors. So there is nothing wrong with the drives. And since the SATA cables are new cables, and the power cables are properly seated as well, there is an issue somewhere that is causing the OS to not show up. 

Allow me to paint you a story as to what all exactly is going on. When I go to turn on my computer, my system "lags out" to the point where even the BIOS loading screen to allow me to press F12 takes almost a minute to show. Then it sits there stalled out trying to load the drive, but doesnt, then gives me that boot list error that I mentioned earlier in this thread. When I reboot with my Windows 7 disc in the optical drive, it takes forever for even the Preparing Windows Files to load. When the install screen comes up, it has already been about 4 or 5 minutes of waiting. When I click on the Windows Repair option, it doesnt detect ANY drives.

[LabRat]

see if you can get a BIOS update or see if there is some kind of software patch that will enable usage of large drives on older motherboartds..... whatever one you're using.

 

also, if you put a jumper on one of those drives to make it run at sata 1.5 ( check the drives site for location pins ) will they work?