BIOS Update - Boot Loader Missing

If you want to flash the BIOS (to get it to the most recent version I would presume?) then there is no reason why you can't do it with no drives attached. It's a "can't hurt, might help" situation.

This way I will do for sure. As far as computers can be said to "make sense", this way (reduce the number of variables) makes sense, at least in a logical world.

@essenbe

Whoa! What the heck ever happened to just connecting the SSD and the optical drives, popping in my installation disk and just sitting back?

Not saying you're wrong and I will indeed do what you tell me - just curious.

OK, did what I said I was going to do, which I think is what was suggested.

Disconnected all drives except the opticals.

Flashed the BIOS with USB (BIOS #1703)

The I selected "optimized defaults" - before and after screenshots show no difference in boot order

The screenshots document everything, including the remaining boot order chaos.

Just a quick lifestyle question: Do you fellows think I should consult Jack Daniels in the future. I don't drink; but right now it seems like a very appealing idea.

Your first boot drive is in uEFI mode.

You guys are gonna give me Freddy Kruger bad dreams tonight. Until I had this problem, I never had occasion to give the BIOS a moment's notice.

Conclusions:

1) I think I should do what essenbe suggested:

When you boot the installer, at the first page do not select your language, hold down Shift and press F10, it will bring up a command prompt. Type these commands and press enter after each one. If you have only 1 disk attached you should show only 1 disk numbered 0 (number zero)
Diskpart (wait for the window to reply diskpart)
List disk
Select disk 0
clean
create partition primary align=1024
format fs=ntfs quick
active
exit exit

I'm way out of my league here but I think that kind of cleans up the boot order?

Please vote: Yes -or- No

2) Just connect the opticals and the single SSD

Please vote: Yes -or- No

3) Let the Windows installation take care of the SSD preparation. Although it's probably unnecessary because of SSD architecture (routine TRIM cleanup) and most people agree that formatting an SSD is "bad" because it increases wear (a silly argument because you will probably die before your SSD gets worn out from formatting), I just let Win 7 "format" the SSD just as it would during a normal install on an HDD.

Please vote: Yes -or- No

In conclusion, then, am I correct to do the above three (3) things?

essenbe, all that is pretty straight-forward and just good old common sense. Will do.

I like what you taught me and am eager to see how it works!

theog said:

The ASUS Crosshair V motherboard BIOS has a uEFI/BIOS firmware.
Windows Boot Manager is add to GPT mode HD Drive or SSD.

Can you post a screen shot of Disk management?

Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

From what I can see, you have no problems with your Windows 7 boot SSD.