Problem Booting Win7 x64 form SSD

Hi,

I joined this forum because I just got Windows 7 Professional x64 and a 120G SSD and am having issues booting from the SSD.

I've installed Windows 7 fine on the SSD without any other hard drive connected to the MoBo (SSD is SATA 6 Gb/s). The SSD is booting on its own like a dream, so I know there is nothing wrong with the SSD or my Win 7 installation.

My conundrum is that when I connect my old hard drives (3) (not wiped, one still has Win XP installed) to get my docs and stuff off them, I can't boot to my SSD. I Turn the PC off, connect the old drives to Sata ports 2, 3, 4 (SSD is Sata 1 6Gb/s) and turn the PC on, my computer now wants to boot from my old drives and trys to boot XP.
So I reboot and check the BIOS to configure the boot sequence but my SSD is not showing in the boot sequence, just the old HDD, it normally (with no other drives connected) shows the SSD in the boot sequence.
Next it disconnect the old HDD's, and run disk manager once booted Win7 and check to make sure the SSD is active, which it is.

I reconnect the old HDD and nothing changes. I even disconnect the drive with XP installed on it but still cannot see my SSD in the boot sequence with the other old HDD's connected.

I am now lost and searching forums where I have ended up here for looking for someones expert advice. lol

Also, I've checked my BIOS drive settings and SATA is IDE not Raid or AHCI.

If anyone could be of assistance I'd really appreciate it.

Cheers,

Joel

p.s. apologies if the technical jargon I've used is incorrect.

I could do that I suppose.

However I have a lot of files on my old HDD's which won't fit on the SSD and so I just want to be able to access them. Normally I would just plug the old HDD's in after installing Win7 on my SSD and then boot up, set SSD to priority boot and then I should be able to access my old HDD's in My Computer. But, as I said before, I can't set the SSD to boot priority because it won't show up, I can only boot from my old HDD.

I tried re-arranging the ports which my drives are plugged into, changed SATA cables, still nothing.

My SSD is Sata II, should I be connecting it to SATA II all the time through a SATA II cable, or can I use SATA III port with SATA II/SATA III cable?

Depending on your motherboard's BIOS, you may be able to hit "F8" during boot up and you can select your SSD drive to boot from, even if you have your conventional drives (XP) connected.

I had the same issue with my drives, Asus board and kept booting the SSD drive via the "F8" boot option. Until I figured out that in the BIOS in one screen move the SSD to the top of the list of drives and then it became selectable in the boot option/sequence BIOS screen. Since then, the SSD drive boots on its own just fine without using "F8".

I realize that your motherboard is a different model from mine, but this may work for you.

jspann7 said:

My SSD is Sata II, should I be connecting it to SATA II all the time through a SATA II cable, or can I use SATA III port with SATA II/SATA III cable?

You could, or just disable the SATA III ports and connect it to SATA II port. Performance wise you wouldn't see any difference...

Cr00zng said:

Depending on your motherboard's BIOS, you may be able to hit "F8" during boot up and you can select your SSD drive to boot from, even if you have your conventional drives (XP) connected.

I had the same issue with my drives, Asus board and kept booting the SSD drive via the "F8" boot option. Until I figured out that in the BIOS in one screen move the SSD to the top of the list of drives and then it became selectable in the boot option/sequence BIOS screen. Since then, the SSD drive boots on its own just fine without using "F8".

I realize that your motherboard is a different model from mine, but this may work for you.

Eurika!

Cr00zng, thats what I ended up doing and now I autmotically boot from my SSD as it is plugged into SATA II port 1.

I can also verify that the performance difference is insignificant (at the moment).

Thanks for all your input.

jspann7

Enjoy your SSD booting...:)

I had the same problem. Its a problem with the boot manager. The bios on your mother board looks at the hard drives to find which one to boot from and sees 2 or mor boot files. The way I fixed it was I unpluges my sata drives and booted from my SSD then after I was in windows 7 I pluged the drives in and formated them. Worked great for me. After that I had no problems at all. I hope this makes sense to you.

I had the same problem. Its a problem with the boot manager. The bios on your mother board looks at the hard drives to find which one to boot from and sees 2 or mor boot files. The way I fixed it was I unpluges my sata drives and booted from my SSD then after I was in windows 7 I pluged the drives in and formated them. Worked great for me. You will be able to get your files this way. After that I had no problems at all. I hope this makes sense to you.