SSD - "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device" message

[Rhirtix]

Hello All,

I booted my machine to find it present me with two things I never encounter.

1) It booted into ASUS Express Gate (EG), which I believe I disabled when I first built the machine several years ago.
2) Upon exiting EG, it displays the main splash screen for my mobo. It then displays text regarding my SSD, that it's connected to Port: S0. After that, I get the "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key" message.

I don't do anything out of the ordinary with my machine. Web browsing. Photo retouching using Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. Some music (iTunes Store only). I don't play games (Diablo III very seldomly) or download anything other than music.

When in Setup, I see:

- Both WD drives appear in Main screen. SSD is "Not Detected"
- CD-R/DVD-R drive also appears in Main screen
- System clock time/date/language all correct
- Under Boot HDDs,
-- 1st Drive: SATA WD 1.5TB
-- 2nd Drive: SATA WD 750GB
-- 3rd Drive: IDE: INTEL SSD (Why is this IDE?)
- Boot Device Priority has changed. SSD is no longer in there. Options are now only removable device, WD 1.5TB, and CDROM - in that order.

Machine specs:
- ASUS P6X59D Premium motherboard
- Intel Core i-7 950 (OC to 4Ghz)
- 12GB RAM
- Intel 510 256GB SSD (SATA III)
- WD Caviar Black 750GB (Data drive)
- WD Caviar Black 1.5 TB (Backup drive - no updated backup for quite a while)
- EVGA GTX 680SC

It looks like my BIOS may have reset itself. How? Looks like my machine is actually at stock CPU and DRAM frequencies.

Any thoughts about the boot drive issue? And, time permitting, the potential BIOS reset?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[Ranger4]

I assume that the Windows 7 OS is on your SSD. Have you tried resetting the boot order so it is first boot & also I assume it was originally set to AHCI, so try resetting it back to that from IDE & see if that fixes the problem.
If not post back for more assistance.

 

[TVeblen]

Unfortunately, this could mean your SSD has failed. You can try it in another computer to see if it is recognized by the BIOS Setup there.

A BIOS can reset itself (Restrore Default Settings) if there is a disruption in power to the motherboard's 3v standby circuit. That can be caused by removing the 3v battery, a failing 3v battery, or a short circuit on the motherboard (only needs to be temporary).

But if the SSD is not being recognized because it has failed then it would not be surprising that the BIOS would automatically 'demote' it.

 

[Rhirtix]

I assume that the Windows 7 OS is on your SSD. Have you tried resetting the boot order so it is first boot & also I assume it was originally set to AHCI, so try resetting it back to that from IDE & see if that fixes the problem.
If not post back for more assistance.

The SSD doesn't appear as an option in the boot priority.

I'm not sure if it was initially set to AHCI or not, to be honest. What I see right now, Marvell 9123 Controller is set to IDE Mode and under Storage Configuration, "SATA Configuration" is set to Enhanced, and "Configure SATA as" is set to IDE.

Should I upload screen shots?

Any other details I can provide?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Rhirtix]

Unfortunately, this could mean your SSD has failed. You can try it in another computer to see if it is recognized by the BIOS Setup there.

A BIOS can reset itself (Restrore Default Settings) if there is a disruption in power to the motherboard's 3v standby circuit. That can be caused by removing the 3v battery, a failing 3v battery, or a short circuit on the motherboard (only needs to be temporary).

But if the SSD is not being recognized because it has failed then it would not be surprising that the BIOS would automatically 'demote' it.

Thanks for the reply. How can I tell if there's been a disruption?

 

[user31]

I would try clearing your CMOS and then reset your sata ports.

 

[TVeblen]

Unfortunately, this could mean your SSD has failed. You can try it in another computer to see if it is recognized by the BIOS Setup there.

A BIOS can reset itself (Restore Default Settings) if there is a disruption in power to the motherboard's 3v standby circuit. That can be caused by removing the 3v battery, a failing 3v battery, or a short circuit on the motherboard (only needs to be temporary).

But if the SSD is not being recognized because it has failed then it would not be surprising that the BIOS would automatically 'demote' it.

Thanks for the reply. How can I tell if there's been a disruption?

Normally the time will be incorrect in the BIOS when the system has lost 3v power. But this will not always happen in the case of a short circuit.

It is recommended that a SATA controller (Configure SATA As) be set to AHCI when using an SSD. It is necessary to do this before you install Windows. There are ways to change from IDE to AHCI afterward, but if you are at a point where a new clean install is feasible then that is best.

But that is a secondary problem for now. You need to deal with the primary problem first. What mode the SATA controller is in would not have any bearing on your primary problem, as far as I know.

 

[TVeblen]

"It looks like my BIOS may have reset itself. How? Looks like my machine is actually at stock CPU and DRAM frequencies."

One other explanation is that when you are overclocking your system you are always pushing the machine to the point of failure (system failure, not hardware failure). When a system fails to boot due to bad BIOS settings it can revert to BIOS defaults to recover. Sometime you can find a stable overclock that will work for a while before it hits a hiccup and crashes.

 

[TVeblen]

The best (quickest) test to see if the SSD has died is to install it in another PC and see if it is recognized in the BIOS on that machine.

If it is recognized then you will know that you have problems somewhere else on your PC.
If it is not then you can start working on getting a new SSD and possibly recovering your data.