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#41
I do that as a rule, ie connect only the SSD and 1 optical drive - and disconnect all HDD's. The operative expression here is "as a rule". I'll betcha that I hurried last time and neglected to do so, result being the 100 MB MS Boot Partition is scattered all over. Will do a reinstall - the right way - and let you know.When you installed Windows 7 fresh, did you have all other hard disconnected?
@essenbeI really love it when somebody pushes me. Usually it's the other way around. Truth is, after having been up for three nights in a row till 3:00 am, I did crash. essenbe, you are indeed incredible - even more tenacious than I am. Thank you so much for giving so much of your time to my ongoing problems.Are we there yet? Or are we taking Christmas night off.
In the past few days I have developed a real, and well-founded, fear of failure. What to do next, so I don't end up reinstalling the rest of my remaining life?
Btw, there are some powerfully smart and scarily knowledgeable people in this forum and I thank you for tolerating me. I do think I can be useful in a way though. I seem to come across lots of problems that really end up being good teaching experiences for others.
1)That's actually a relevant question - at least in my case. Why? Well, I have about 20 TB of HDD backup (all my work for the NSA, you know ). Anyway, I ran out of partition letters (26), so I needed to convert some of my drives (3 TB) to GPT so I could read them and then use "Folders". Answer: Only the 3 TB drive is GPT, no other choice, but my SSD is not tampered with since it's architecture in no way resembles a HDD - I did quite a study of SSD's a while back, my conclusion being just to let the darn things alone, since mine are all Gen 2 and above)It would also be important to know if what the file table format of all the drives is - MBR format or GPT format - particularly the SDD.
2) @TVeblenAs I mentioned, I think I dropped the ball there. Good point!When you installed W7 fresh, did you have all other hard disk drives disconnected
3) @ganjiri and theog UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with Converting a BIOS is way above my pay grade. Never done it. Actually never knew it was possible. But I can follow instructions. Should I do that?
4) @theog I looked at your attachment and must say that I have not seen a BIOS that elementary since about 1991. Am I missing something?
For what it's worth, I know what normal boot order looks like. I just don't understand the nonsense that I am now seeing. By the way, the ASUS Crosshair V motherboard BIOS I have reverted back to factory defaults, #1203 I think - rather ancient anyway. And still scrambled boot order (so I think the Boot Loader is partially installed on one or more of the HDD's and not on the SSD where it should be)
5) Should I disconnect all drives except the USB flash and then update the BIOS to #1703 (latest) and then connect the SSD and optical to reinstall Win 7 - or ....