Windows 7: will not boot from SSD when attach additional HDDs

I am upgrading my HTPC that i put together a few years back to have a SSD as a boot drive to increase space, quiet background running and speed up booting, etc.

Original:
Abit IP35 Pro
Boot drive: WD raptor 120gb
Storage: 2tb x 3
Win 7 32bit

New drive: crucial m4 256gb

Everything was running fine before trying to exchange the raptor for the m4. I had a big issue getting Windows installed on m4 but finally did a clean install when no harddrive was connected except the SSD to the original SATA port of the boot drive. Once I had windows installed, and i was able to boot up with only the SSD attached to the boot SATA port, I attached the 3 storage drives to their original SATA ports and got an error when booting... it paused in mid boot, then started searching for a boot disk in the DVD drive. I looked at the BIOS and the SSD is listed as 1st (port0) on hard drive boot order and hard drive is 1st boot priority. I unplugged all 3 storage drives and it booted up without an issue.

any thoughts on why alone it would boot up fine but when 3 other drives are attached does it not boot and look for a boot disk in the DVD? Thanks

Have you tried connecting just one storage drive, then rebooting to see if there is success; then connecting a second storage drive, etc? The idea being to identify which of the 3 storage drives causes the problem to arise.

You say you had "a big issue" getting Windows installed onto the SSD. Did some of your attempts to get Windows on the SSD include having one or more of these storage drives still connected to the motherboard? I'm guessing maybe one of your failed attempts wrote some Windows files to one of the storage drives and those files remain on that drive--even though you later disconnected that storage drive and successfully installed Windows to the SSD with no other drives connected.

Installing to an SSD when no other drives are connected is typically painless and without issues.

A screen shot of Disk Management might be revealing.

My big issue was getting everything set to ahci, getting my DVD drive recognized and setting the bios to 1st boot from the DVD. After I figured that out, it installed fine. I always attempted installation with only the SSD attached, all other drives disconnected. I'll give it a shot with one drive at a time and see what happens. And i'll get a screenshot too. Thanks...

Update: tried one hdd at a time. It doesn't look like one specific drive, just all thee (4 with Ssd). I plugged in 1, started fine. Plugged in 1 and 2. Started fine. Plugged in 1,2, and 3. Stalled on boot, looking for boot disk in DVD. Plugged in 1 and 3, started fine.

Is there some limiter on how many drives can be attached??

I just noticed that is an Abit board. I think they are out of business, so that must be 5 or 6 years old?

Considering its age, there may well be some motherboard/bios limitation. I assume you can't upgrade the BIOS on that board any more.

Have you tried all available ports on the board?

You are also trying for 6 TB total storage. The limitation may be on the storage amount per se rather than the number of drives.

I have no idea about why it is looking at the DVD drive.

Have you googled that board re possible limitations?

Does one of the HD's have a bootable OS? If so make sure the SSD remains set first to boot in BIOS setup while connecting the bootable HD.

Determine which HD is blocking SSD boot by process of elimination trying them one at a time. Double-check that the SSD is still set first to boot. Then boot HD alone if it holds a bootable OS, copy off it's data then wipe it with Diskpart Clean Command to clean the boot sector. If it won't boot, use DVD or System Repair Disk to copy out the data: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console then wipe with Diskpart from DVD/Repair CD System Recovery Options Command Line.

@ignatz - The motherboard is going on 5 years old... Searching around, they do have bios files to download... Looks like I'm a few updates overdue. All the ports are used up - 6 sata - 4 HDD, 2 DVD/BR. I don't think it's a storage space issue - it was running fine with 6tb of storage space and 120gb boot HDD. Only a problem now that I'm putting the SSD in (though it is slightly larger). Googling it, haven't found another similar issue.

@greg - none of the other HDDs have OS files on them. As above, I tried a mix of HDDs to see which one is causing problems and it doesn't seem like one specific, just when all 3 are connected. If any 2 are connected, it works fine.

Thanks for the thoughts. I'll keep digging

Yeah; that's puzzling. You booted OK and all your storage worked with the OS on an HDD, but can't boot with the OS on an SSD with all storage connected.

Keep digging.

Maybe an SSD firmware update--but that's a wild stab in the dark. Have you inquired with the SSD tech support?

Is BIOS set to defaults or anything odd-looking in there?

I'll see about the ssd firmware update... Shouldn't be too difficult. I'll also try the ssd tech support.

Didn't change much in bios except to ahci.

Could it have anything to do with voltage settings for the hdd's or power? I.e. 3 drives can get power, but the 4th puts it over the edge and the SSD won't run. Just racking my brain...

I'd doubt power requirements are a factor---you were successful with 4 HDDs total and now fail with 3 HDDs and 1 SSD--and I'd expect power consumption to be lower on the added SSD than on the eliminated HDD.

Have you tried optimized defaults in the BIOS?

The asking for the DVD is puzzling. Is anything different if you disable or disconnect the DVD drive?

Is the SSD on port 0? That is, is it shown as Disc 0 in Windows?