Added new/old HDs and now I get 'Reboot and Select Proper Media.'

My first build.

Originally, I had 2 3tb Seagates in this machine. I had Win 7 installed on one of the drives and the other was for future storage. They both worked fine.

I had an extra SSD so I unplugged the HDs and installed the SSD. I did a clean install with W7pro on the SSD. It's been working fine for a week or so. It's just the SSD now.

I put a new PSU in tonight. I plugged the SSD back in and it booted just fine.

I shut down and plugged the 2 3tb HDs back in. I got 'Reboot and Select Proper Media.'

I rebooted and went into boot select and selected the SSD and got the same message.
I went into the BIOS to try and make sure it was booting to the SSD and it seems to be set correctly. Same message.

I figured that maybe the one HD having W7 installed on it might be causing problems so I decided to use GPARTED on DVD to delete the first partition of the HD (the one with the boot on it [hope I'm explaining this correctly]) but It won't even boot the DVD. I get the same message.

I will say this...the BIOS on this machine confuses me. Other BIOSs you select a boot device and hit +/- and the boot device moves. This BIOS is not quite like that. Not sure if I'm doing it right HOWEVER, I can hit F12 at boot and I get the option to load the DVD first. It just doesn't work.

This is also new to me. One of the boot devices in the BIOS and at start up is Windows Boot Manager

EDIT: when I plugged everything back in I used the same SATA ports. The SSD is the 0 SATA port. I have no idea if that matters or not.

It would be good to know what you are using for a motherboard.

You most likely have the newer UEFI BIOS. You would select the Windows Boot Manager as your first boot device normally.

If you have been making a lot of changes in the UEFI/BIOS then it might be a good idea to "Load Optimized Defaults" and start again. Note any necessary changes you need, but leave everything else alone until you are completely set up.

Some questions:

• In your BIOS, do you have your SATA Configuration > SATA Mode set to AHCI?
• On the 3TB spinner: Is there a small 100MB or 200MB "System" partition? (In a standard Windows installation this partition will be created and used to keep the Windows Boot Manager. If you delete C: you should delete that one at the same time.)
• Do you know if your SSD was initialized as a MBR or GPT drive?

Hello!

Probably you can change from UEFI mode to "compatible" or "legacy" or whatever is called. This should allow you setting the boot order they way you want. Make sure from the hard disks priority, that SSD is the first device. Most motherboards allow manually boot selection by pressing F8 during startup.

Really want to get to this now but I can't!

The board is a gigabyte a75M DS 2 http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4190#ov

Win 7 did not set the bios to ACHI, I noted it was set to IDE which is weird because there has never been an IDE device on this board. I am a little paranoid about changing it to ACHI.

I will have to get back to this tonight.

Windows will not set the SATA Mode. That is either UEFI/BIOS default or a user selection (in BIOS Settings).
If this is a UEFI BIOS it is highly unlikely that IDE is the default.
That SATA Mode should have been set to AHCI before you installed Windows.

If you do not want to reinstall Windows in AHCI Mode there are fixes. Just let us know which way you would rather go.

With an SSD you really want to be in AHCI Mode. And this could be the source of the problem.

It's a dual BIOS and I'm very unsure of UEFI. I know very little about it.

I think i'd like to go w/ACHI as that is better for SSD drives, correct?

I think I've seen a tutorial on this forum.

I looked at your motherboard and I would be very surprised if it were not UEFI.

Yes, use the tutorial here to change your current installation to AHCI.
AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista
Be sure to follow all the steps closely, as doing anything out of order will not produce the wanted result.

Let us know if the problem remains afterward.

Any answers to my other questions?

It has not booted since this thread. I turned it on(hesitate to say boot) and missed the bios and it booted up!
Nevertheless, I am in the bios now and what I saw as sata/ IDE is in fact 'on chip sata type -sata'. Options are sata,IDE or raid. Should I switch it to ahci?
The only other thing related to sata is On chip sata enabled (directly above sata type). And sata power which is all on?

Edit: I loaded optimal settings in the bios and rebooted and on chip sata stayed IDE.

I am interested to know if I need to change the on chip settings to achi but my main Q still stands. How do I plus the drives in without repeating this mess?

ChrisPbass said:

Really want to get to this now but I can't!

The board is a gigabyte a75M DS 2 http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4190#ov

Win 7 did not set the bios to ACHI, I noted it was set to IDE which is weird because there has never been an IDE device on this board. I am a little paranoid about changing it to ACHI.

I will have to get back to this tonight.

SATA technology is newer than IDE technology. Most motherboards allow SATA devices operate in either "IDE mode" (using legacy I/O instructions) or "AHCI mode" (using new set of instructions that support more features). Windows XP and newer can handle both "languages" while older Windows versions and DOS (that includes bootable live CDs with recovery utilities) understand only the "legacy mode". It is common for a modern computer to be set at AHCI mode so it maximizes performance and supports more features. If such a computer has a problem and we attempt to use a live CD to diagnose, chances are that either it will have trouble loading or it will report no disk is found. To properly work we must set the disk to "IDE mode" from BIOS. So this is only about which protocol, "language" the device uses to communicate with the motherboard and the operating system. The device connection remains the same.

Warning: If you set the disk in either IDE or AHCI mode and install Windows, you will get a blue screen of death if you switch to the other mode and try loading Windows. So if you are going to make a clean install of Windows in a system you are recommended to set it to AHCI for maximum performance and support of all features and never change it again, unless you want to use a diagnostic live CD that won't see the disk otherwise. Don't forget to switch back to AHCI for Windows to work properly.

I hope that helps.