Windows 7: Cannot access bios after SSD upgrade

Check the 3v battery on the motherboard. When these start losing power all kinds of strange things start happening.

It just sounds like the MB is not retaining settings, and a weak 3v battery is a likely cause. You can get a new CR3032 3v battery almost anywhere.

I tried replacing the battery, enabled usb keyboard/mouse. Mouse stops working and no internet(whether or not should it make any difference to that).

I was thinking that would the bios update be too old for SSD? Would the newest release, 2 years later published, be better with ssd?

Sometimes you can answer that question by reading the fixes included in each subsequent BIOS release.

Other than that it is just a crap shoot. You hope the update contains improvements to system performance.

Given that your motherboard is exhibiting multiple symptoms (assuming the NIC is on the motherboard and not an add-on card) then you have little to lose. You have done everything you can do to reset the settings in BIOS so we have to assume now that the problem is with the hardware itself.

What is the brand and model of motherboard?

Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket AM2+ - GA-MA78G-DS3H (rev. 2.x)

OK a couple of things:

Have you already selected "Load Optimized Defaults" in BIOS? If not, do so.
I would also try "Fail Safe Defaults" just for kicks and grins.

I do not install Beta BIOS versions, personally. That means the newest BIOS upgrade I would install is F8. If you are brave you could try F9E.

The safest way to flash a BIOS is from the BIOS Utility, not from an OS.
For that you would use Q-Flash.
I assume you do not have a floppy disk drive and/or floppy disks.
Because you can not access a USB stick in BIOS I would place the BIOS update download file on the hard disk and access it from there. To do this you need to:

• Create a partition on your hard drive, temporarily, of any size, that is formated FAT32. You can not use a NTFS partition for this.
• Label the partition something unique and 8 characters or less. "DIRT" would work.
• Put the BIOS update download on that partition (with nothing else on it).

Read and carefully follow the instructions for navigating and using Q-Flash on page 66 of your manual here:
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList...78g-ds3h_e.pdf



Good Luck!

This brings up a good point, what format does the USB drive have?
It needs to be Fat32.

My usb stick was fat32 formatted. Another point, why is there not fat32 option in formatting harddisk partition in windows?

Whew. I almost lost hope totally, but today I tried that "load fail safe defaults", got to windows, and my internet is working!

Updating the chipset drivers from the computer manufacturer or motherboard manufacturer may resolve the USB issue.

I hope that some of you smart and helpful guys are still following this thread because (if I can muster the knowledge and courage) I hope to soon install a Samsung 830 Series SSD onto a Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H Rev 2.0 motherboard. (That's almost or exactly the same motherboard as the originator of this thread.) Then I will be gladly saying goodbye (don't come back!) to Vista and installing Windows 7 Pro. SP1 (OEM).

I am scared to death and so am trying to plan carefully and to know as best I can what I am getting into.

One of the (many) things I am confused about is drivers. The Gigabyte page for driver downloads has an entry for Windows 7 but not for Windows 7 SP1. Do I need all 6 of the drivers listed - even though some go back to August of 2009? I've noted that 4 weeks ago TVeblen said not to install the Gigabyte AHCI driver (because once I get Windows 7 up I will be installing the Samsung driver, right?). Is that the only Gigabyte driver I should ignore? If I don't plan to configure any RAID drives can I ignore the Gigabyte RAID driver?

How will I make sure that the SSD drive is the C drive? I know I'd be able to boot from it even if is wasn't the C drive but I'd really like it to be the C drive. Is that a BIOS setting or is it determined by which of the 6 SATA connectors I use? (I haven't seen this mentioned in the motherboard manual.)

Thanks for whatever help you can offer. I will appreciate it (and need it!).

Bob