Reset BIOS so that it first checks CD/DVD drives, & then boots normal

Ghot said:

Temporarily, unhook the external hard drives.

For Boot Option priorities set the PO: DVD RAM first, then set the P3: Samsung SSD 850 Pro, 2nd.
What ever is third, doesn't matter.


Put something bootable in the DVD RAM drive ofc. And then see what happens when you boot.



Like this.................



Attachment 323856

Thanks again.

1. I uplugged the backup drive.
2. Put a Macrium Reflect rescue disk in the first drive.
3. Rebooted & went into the BIOS
4. changed the priorities as you showed
5. Saved & exited the BIOS
6. Computer booted to the rescue disk & the Reflect screen loaded
7. After it finished loading, I took the disk out & rebooted
8. Got the message about pressing any key to boot from floppy, same as before

In order to boot to windows, I had to load the default configuration. The only difference from your screen is that my other DVD/Blue-Ray drive showed up as option 4.

phrab said:

Thanks again.

1. I uplugged the backup drive.
2. Put a Macrium Reflect rescue disk in the first drive.
3. Rebooted & went into the BIOS
4. changed the priorities as you showed
5. Saved & exited the BIOS
6. Computer booted to the rescue disk & the Reflect screen loaded
7. After it finished loading, I took the disk out & rebooted
8. Got the message about pressing any key to boot from floppy, same as before

In order to boot to windows, I had to load the default configuration. The only difference from your screen is that my other DVD/Blue-Ray drive showed up as option 4.

Try switching Boot Option 2 and 3... w/o the external drives hooked up.
I don't think it will help, but ya never know.

Ghot said:

Try switching Boot Option 2 and 3... w/o the external drives hooked up.
I don't think it will help, but ya never know.

It didn't change anything. I don't know if I could have done something to the MBR from inside Windows. I know that I never used to have that problem until last week. I think on Monday, I'll call Gigabyte. You've gone above & beyond helping me & I am truly grateful!!

phrab said:

It didn't change anything. I don't know if I could have done something to the MBR from inside Windows. I know that I never used to have that problem until last week. I think on Monday, I'll call Gigabyte. You've gone above & beyond helping me & I am truly grateful!!

Before you pack it in tonight... from within Windows... post a screen shot of Disk Management, and of the very first page of Macrium Reflect.
It may help me or someone, find the problem.

Ghot said:

From within Windows... post a screen shot of Disk Management, and of the very first page of Macrium Reflect.
It may help me or someone, to find what's wrong.

phrab said:

Is Passport1 D: ...an internal or external drive?

phrab said:

I have a Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 7

Yeah we basically have the same BIOS design. This is from my Z270 Gaming 8 board....

Ghot said:

Temporarily, unhook the external hard drives.

You shouldn't need to remove any external drives, just make the OS drive the first boot drive in the BIOS. Also, if there's no boot media in the optical drive, it gets bypassed anyway and the BIOS looks for the next boot source. The error the OP is getting when the media is not in the optical drive clearly say there's an issue with the Boot files on the HDD/SSD drive.

BTW, what does it say on the Save & Exit panel for Boot Override? It should point to the Boot drive in the system, or Optical drive if installing media from the drive.

All that said (and 4 pages in), I've not read through the entire thread... what is the OP trying to accomplish that they need an optical drive for? Are they trying to install/reinstall Windows through DVD or restoring an image via media disk?

If reinstalling an image... how was it created in the first place. Was the disk created while the PC was in legacy mode or UEFI mode? Is the OP sure the media is being copied to the HDD/SSD drive?

Also.... the OP needs to Windows 8/10 Features set to Windows 8/10 instead of "Other OS".

Ghot said:

Is Passport1 an internal or external drive?

External. I plugged it in again because I use it for backup & to copy certain files & settings during the day.

@sygnus21

Feel free to jump in... this is too much unlike my setups.
See posts #13 and #14. They are sort of a summary of the problem.



@phrab

I dunno bro. This is too weird for me.

You use Macrium Reflect. You say it worked up till about a week or so ago... have you restored from a backup older than a week or so ago?

It might not matter... but I saw a Z: drive. I would change that to a different letter also.
Don't use A, B or Z for drive letters.


There's also a tool on the Macrium Reflect bootable media, called "Fix boot problems".
I have no idea if it will help with this or not.

Thank you again for all your information.

sygnus21 said:

Yeah we basically have the same BIOS design. This is from my Z270 Gaming 8 board....





You shouldn't need to remove any external drives, just make the OS drive the first boot drive in the BIOS. Also, if there's no boot media in the optical drive, it gets bypassed anyway and the BIOS looks for the next boot source. The error the OP is getting when the media is not in the optical drive clearly say there's an issue with the Boot files on the HDD/SSD drive.

BTW, what does it say on the Save & Exit panel for Boot Override? It should point to the Boot drive in the system, or Optical drive if installing media from the drive.

This is what I have for boot override:

sygnus21 said:

All that said (and 4 pages in), I've not read through the entire thread... what is the OP trying to accomplish that they need an optical drive for? Are they trying to install/reinstall Windows through DVD or restoring an image via media disk?

Just so I can restore an image when I have to. The rescue disk loads Macrium Reflect, so I can choose to restore to a time prior to if/when I screw things up.

sygnus21 said:

If reinstalling an image... how was it created in the first place. Was the disk created while the PC was in legacy mode or UEFI mode? Is the OP sure the media is being copied to the HDD/SSD drive?

Quite frankly, I don't know the difference. The disk was created by starting Reflect & choosing Other tasks > Create rescue media...

It is copied to a DVD. When I choose to have the first boot option to be an optical drive AND I put the rescue disk in, it works as it should. When I reboot, it loads Reflect. However, to get to Windows, I have to take the disk out or else it will keep loading Reflect. When I do that, close Reflect, the computer reboots, but I get the message "MBR error 1, press any key to boot from floppy". Then I have to shut the computer, start it, go into the BIOS & change the boot order.

sygnus21 said:

Also.... the OP needs to Windows 8/10 Features set to Windows 8/10 instead of "Other OS".

I didn't know it was set incorrectly. How do I change that?

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you again!

Ghot said:

You use Macrium Reflect. You say it worked up till about a week or so ago... have you restored from a backup older than a week or so ago?

It might not matter... but I saw a Z: drive. I would change that to a different letter also.
Don't use A, B or Z for drive letters.


There's also a tool on the Macrium Reflect bootable media, called "Fix boot problems".
I have no idea if it will help with this or not.

I restored from a backup last week. That's when I discovered that, unlike previous times, when I put the rescue disk in and rebooted, the computer just rebooted to Windows without loading Reflect. It had never done that before.

My Y & Z drives are because I had trouble seeing my WinXP machine on the network. I had trouble getting Win10 to recognize the XP machine & ended up with 2 drive letters for my Win10 machine. I used to use them when I transferred files between the 2 computers, but now I use FreeFileSync, which works much better.

I will take a look at the tool on the Reflect disk.