SSD Boot drive question

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cabanaboy38

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 10, 2005
Messages
226
I have a 256 gig SSD for boot drive but Windows does not show it as the Active drive. It shows my 500 gig HD as Active. Is it safe to change the SSD to active after all it does contain the OS?

thanks in advance
 
Did you install Windows on the SSD with the HDD connected? If so, that is why. As for changing it after the fact, i'm not sure.

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You can have an active partition on both drives - it'll boot off the one that the BIOS has set as the first drive. It shouldn't be possible (as I understand it) to install to a drive and not have it be marked as an active partition, if that was the only drive in the system when it was installed. Did you partition the SSD somewhere else first? Does the 500GB drive have an OS on it? Does your machine boot if you unhook the 500GB drive?

I had to do a boot repair of my wife's machine, and somehow Win 7 began using the bootloader on her second drive, instead of the one on the primary drive - is it possible something like that is happening in your case?
 
Just went through something like this myself.

First off, is your BIOS up to date? I had a problem with it not wanting to install to mine due to OCB (Old Crufty BIOS). Make sure of it.

Second, you've enabled AHCI or RAID on your board correct? Don't try this in IDE mode.

Also, the shifting between IDE and RAID and AHCI modes screws with the default drive configs somewhat. Was going to do my install off a thumb drive until the AHCI/RAID config for my board nixed that idea.

You need to go down to your boot order and make sure the SSD is included. If it's not showing, back out and go to the Hard Drive control (also on the BOOT section screen) and shuffle the available drives until the appropriate one comes up. Now some of the options I'm talking about are not visible in IDE mode. They only pop once you've rebooted in RAID or AHCI mode.

And, don't try to do this all at once (flip all the settings, save and go). At least in my case, my board changed how it identified the drives between each mode.

On my P5Q PRO (ICH10R controller), since I was RAID'ing I followed these steps.

  1. Go into the BIOS.
  2. On the MAIN page, go into Storage Configuration.
  3. Change "Configure SATA as" to RAID.
  4. Save and Reboot
  5. When the RAID config comes up, hit CTRL+I (The letter i, not the number 1)
  6. Create a new array however the heck you want to.
  7. Exit and Reboot
  8. Go into the BIOS.
  9. On the BOOT page, go into Boot Settings configuration.
  10. Shuffle the hard drives until the array "device" is first.
  11. Save and Reboot.
  12. Go into the BIOS.
  13. On the Boot page, go into Boot Device Priority.
  14. Put the array first, and the optical second.
  15. Save and Reboot.
  16. Install.


For you, it'd be similar.

  1. Go into the BIOS.
  2. On the MAIN page, go into Storage Configuration.
  3. Change "Configure SATA as" to AHCI.
  4. Save and Reboot
  5. Go into the BIOS.
  6. On the BOOT page, go into Boot Settings configuration.
  7. Shuffle the hard drives until the SSD is first.
  8. Save and Reboot.
  9. Go into the BIOS.
  10. On the Boot page, go into Boot Device Priority.
  11. Put the SSD first, and the optical second.
  12. Save and Reboot.
  13. Install.


This and having the latest Intel RAID drivers (if you're on an Intel board you'll need the RAID/AHCI driver as well. If you're running one of the Intel RAID/AHCI controlelrs, you can actually use the 10.* version of the RapidStorage driver from Intel's site.


Hope this helps.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I will give it a try, I did everything you did except I may have forgotten to set the SSD to first.

thanks
Chas said:
Just went through something like this myself.

First off, is your BIOS up to date? I had a problem with it not wanting to install to mine due to OCB (Old Crufty BIOS). Make sure of it.

Second, you've enabled AHCI or RAID on your board correct? Don't try this in IDE mode.

Also, the shifting between IDE and RAID and AHCI modes screws with the default drive configs somewhat. Was going to do my install off a thumb drive until the AHCI/RAID config for my board nixed that idea.

You need to go down to your boot order and make sure the SSD is included. If it's not showing, back out and go to the Hard Drive control (also on the BOOT section screen) and shuffle the available drives until the appropriate one comes up. Now some of the options I'm talking about are not visible in IDE mode. They only pop once you've rebooted in RAID or AHCI mode.

And, don't try to do this all at once (flip all the settings, save and go). At least in my case, my board changed how it identified the drives between each mode.

On my P5Q PRO (ICH10R controller), since I was RAID'ing I followed these steps.

  1. Go into the BIOS.
  2. On the MAIN page, go into Storage Configuration.
  3. Change "Configure SATA as" to RAID.
  4. Save and Reboot
  5. When the RAID config comes up, hit CTRL+I (The letter i, not the number 1)
  6. Create a new array however the heck you want to.
  7. Exit and Reboot
  8. Go into the BIOS.
  9. On the BOOT page, go into Boot Settings configuration.
  10. Shuffle the hard drives until the array "device" is first.
  11. Save and Reboot.
  12. Go into the BIOS.
  13. On the Boot page, go into Boot Device Priority.
  14. Put the array first, and the optical second.
  15. Save and Reboot.
  16. Install.


For you, it'd be similar.

  1. Go into the BIOS.
  2. On the MAIN page, go into Storage Configuration.
  3. Change "Configure SATA as" to AHCI.
  4. Save and Reboot
  5. Go into the BIOS.
  6. On the BOOT page, go into Boot Settings configuration.
  7. Shuffle the hard drives until the SSD is first.
  8. Save and Reboot.
  9. Go into the BIOS.
  10. On the Boot page, go into Boot Device Priority.
  11. Put the SSD first, and the optical second.
  12. Save and Reboot.
  13. Install.


This and having the latest Intel RAID drivers (if you're on an Intel board you'll need the RAID/AHCI driver as well. If you're running one of the Intel RAID/AHCI controlelrs, you can actually use the 10.* version of the RapidStorage driver from Intel's site.


Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
 
I just did a fresh install with only the SSD connected then I connected the other drives and this is what I got.

5309272732_dee8b55ec7.jpg
[/url] disk by TattooVampire, on Flickr[/IMG]

I made sure the SSD was the boot drive in the bios before installing. It probably makes no difference everything shows up correctly in the explorer window but I need to know if I can fix this. 0 should be 1 and 2 should be 0 and 1 should be 2.

thanks in advance
 
The disk number doesn't matter - it is based on which port the drive is connected to.

The reason your C: partition isn't marked as active is because the active partition on that drive is the System Reserved partition, which is used for the Win 7 recovery tools. Bottom line, you're fine, don't worry about it.
 
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