Windows 7 dual boot using BIOS vs software vs switch ?

I just update my PC info. It has 8GB RAM and a GTX 750Ti SC video card with 4GB RAM.

Eventually the PC with the SSD will be used as a game PC.

In the meantime I want the game software to be on both drives & have those both connected to make it easier to setup & compare things.

I will only run the game on whichever is the C: drive. I just don’t want it looking for bits of data on the other drive.

The HDD was the C: drive. Turned off the PC and connected the SSD.

Powered on & went into BIOS. It recognized the SDD. I set the boot order as HDD first then the SSD. Exited & saved changes.

Turned off the PC, then turned back on & tapped the ESC key & it displayed the boot menu. I selected the SSD, but the PC booted up with the HDD.

I went to Start > Computer and it does not show the SSD. However Control Panel > Device Manager does list both drives.

Should the SSD show up in Start > Computer?
Why didn't the SSD boot?

I tried a 2nd time & got a black screen with a message to repair (recommended) or restart normally. I chose restart normally because I didn't know what the repair would do. It booted to the HDD again.

Powered off & then back on & got the same message & same results.

Disconnected the HHD & had just the SSD connected.
Powered off & then back on & got a black screen with a message that Windows failed to start..., ...required device is inaccessible. I did this a few times & always got the same message.

It did give options to insert the Windows disc & a couple other options.

I inserted the Windows disc & chose repair. I took a photo showing what was going to be done & proceeded.

I don't recall the exact wording but it appeared I was supposed to hit "Enter" again, but it never said to remove the disc. So I left it in. Now I get a message that it can't be repaired automatically.

I removed the Windows disc & rebooted and the SSD is working again. Maybe I got the message that it could not be repaired automatically because it was already repaired & the system didn't know what to do.

I'll take a close look at the photos I took of the messages & try to figure out what was repaired.

SIW2 said:

required device missing means the bcd entry was wrong.

Sounds like startup repair fixed it.

What made it go wrong?
BIOS recognized the drive & the boot order was correct.

You mentioned"
You need to have a look in disk management and see which is listed as the active, system partition.
Windows does not automatically allocate a drive letter to the live system partition.


How do I look in disk management to see if the SSD is the active, system partition? If the SSD did not boot, then it would not be active. Obviously I'm not understanding what is happening.

Here's the photo I took of what was going to be repaired.

I don't have a screen shot of Disk Management.
Messages #13 & #14 sort of crossed. You obviously hit the Post Reply right before I did, therefore I never saw your Disk Management comment. It would have been too late anyway because I was in the process of trying to repair the SSD.

Should I re-connect both drives & boot off the default HDD and look at Disk Management?

What are those {GUIDS}?