SSD wont boot into Windows 7?

[allday165]

Had this SSD for 6 months (OCZ Vertex 4). I used it as my boot drive, with a secondary hard drive unharmed. Woke up one morning to use it and it wont boot. I get the common message "Reboot and select proper boot device", unable to load Windows 7 after the BIOS. The SSD shows up in the BIOS and Device Manager, doesn't not show up in Windows. I tried a bunch of things, installing Windows 7 on my extra hard drive, but it won't show up as a secondary/data drive.

Now, I understand there are a lot of threads with this problem. I just want to know if there's a way I can save two things...my programs and my bookmarks on Firefox. All I would need is a screenshot of my start menu and bookmarks, which I feel guilt for not backing up, but I can't access the drive. Everything else is backed up.

If there is a way I can install Windows on the SSD without losing my bookmarks and programs, or extract the data somehow, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[JRockZ]

My guess is that possibly you installed or windows update installed and AHCI driver that maybe wasnt enabled before or something in your bios just got changed up,, have you reset your bios to defaults?
IF that doesnt work try this tutorial by BFK
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/61869-ahci-enable-windows-7-vista-32.html

EDIT: Ooops i may not have read your post correctly,,, have you tried to use F12 or whatever F key your board requires to select your boot drive? if you tell it to boot directly from your SSD drive maybe that will get you in

 

[allday165]

F8 shows the boot menu, TAB is for POST. It shows the error message right after I select the SSD. Same thing with POST.

 

[edwar]

Get a Boot CD with something like Ubuntu on it and post a screen shot of a drive and partition map of your drives.

I suspect you installed Windows on the SSD and left the original drive in the system when doing that. That may cause the System Reserve partition to be placed on the second drive and it that drive goes bad the system won't boot.

You could also try disconnecting the second drive and then doing a Repair install, or a new install over the top of the current install on the SSD. That may place the System Reserve partition on the SSD.

Then again the SSD may have failed.

When you go to install windows on any drive Disconnect ALL Other drives.

 

[allday165]

Is this what you mean as partition map? Disk 0 is my 320 GB Barracuda that I have as my back up drive not attached to my computer. I installed Win7 on it because I could just put the data from my 1TB Spinpoint should I lose any data, but I didn't lose any. Disk 1 is my Vertex 4 SSD.

 

[bigmck]

Is this what you mean as partition map? Disk 0 is my 320 GB Barracuda that I have as my back up drive not attached to my computer. I installed Win7 on it because I could just put the data from my 1TB Spinpoint should I lose any data, but I didn't lose any. Disk 1 is my Vertex 4 SSD.

It looks from your Disk Management that there are no files on your SSD. It appears the boot drive is Disk 0. Have you tried booting with the SSD unplugged from the motherboard and only Disk 0 plugged in. From what I see it should boot doing it that way. You will need to go into your Bios and make sure that the 298 GB is the disk that boots first. If it does I can lead you to transferring things to the SSD.

 

[edwar]

Yes that is what I meant. I didn't think you could boot into Windows, at least that is what I got from an earlier post of yours.

In any event if the SSD was working before it certainly isn't now as it is 119GBs of Unallocated space. Might be that drive has failed or you somehow inadvertently wiped that drive.

If you try to install Windows on it be sure to disconnect the other drive. Otherwise you will have a slight mess on your hands.

 

[allday165]

Disk 0 is my 320 GB Barracuda. I installed Win7 on it because I needed a boot drive (my ssd won't boot), so I could come on the forum and post. My 1TB is a moot point. It has all my data on it and no OS, except for programs and bookmarks. The only reason I mentioned it was because I can always take the data on the 1TB and transfer it to the 320 GB, considering I need to wipe the 320 GB clean.

 

[allday165]

Ok, so I guess all the data is gone already? Is there anyway to recover it? I don't trust this drive anymore, so I really don't want to continue using it in the future. I guess I'll call OCZ or something, because I think there is a 1 year warranty on it.

 

[bigmck]

Ok, so I guess all the data is gone already? Is there anyway to recover it? I don't trust this drive anymore, so I really don't want to continue using it in the future. I guess I'll call OCZ or something, because I think there is a 1 year warranty on it.

The SSD is all unallocated space, ie blank. If you have a Windows 7 disk, you give it a try installing again on the SSD. You can find out that way if the SSD is good.

 

[whs]

I suspect that your SSD let you down - probably the controller that's on the blink. I have seen that before.

You can try this program: http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/