Windows 7 x64 not booting after BIOS after swapping data drive... :(

[veritas7]

Hello all!

My setup:
Q9550
GA-EP45-UD3P v1.3
8 GB RAM
Intel SSD 80GB
various other drives

The problem: When I swapped a 1 TB WD Green Drive out for 1.5 Seagate drive, my computer does not boot Windows anymore, it appears to want to have boot preference on the IDE (mode-set SATA) 1.5TB drive rather than my (Native Mode ACHI set) SSD!

The 1TB/1.5TB is on a SATA port set to IDE, displayed as the Master drive in BIOS, while the Slave (SATA) port that accompanies it on this motherboard belongs to my optical drive.

The rest of my other hard drives are on ports 0-5 and are set to AHCI.

Everything was completely fine before the swap! All I did was swap a 1TB to a 1.5TB, and now my motherboard/BIOS apparently wants to boot the IDE 1.5TB data drive instead of my SSD (which is set as Active/Primary and in AHCI as well)!

I did BIOS reset, reboot, then another reset, redid my BIOS settings, and it still wants to boot the 1.5TB first, and the only way I can get in to Windows at the moment is by selecting "Select Boot Device (F12)" when starting up the computer.

I formatted the 1.5TB via eSATA and it's set to NTFS/Primary but NOT Active, and I'm completely stumped as to why my motherboard wants to boot from it...

Any ideas?

EDIT: I should also state the 1.5TB is on the PURPLE G-SATA (Gigabyte SATA chip) connector while my boot drive SSD is on the ORANGE/YELLOW normal SATA connector (which goes to the Intel ICH10R) - so for some odd reason the Gigabyte ports have boot preference over the Intel ports?

 

[Dangman]

What probably happened if both the SSD and 1TB drive was in the system at the time of the OS install was that the MBR was placed on the 1TB drive instead of the SSD. So to fix that, remove all drives except for the SSD. Then google how to fix your MBR with Windows 7. Follow the instructions there and you should be ok.

 

[veritas7]

Argh... for some reason this SECOND time around, I tried Windows Recovery (off a USB Windows Preboot Environment) and somehow it fixed it...

Thanks for the help, Danny, seems like Windows likes jerking my chain.

You'll probably see another post from me within the next few weeks about perhaps a new build or maybe longer if I see if Bulldozer is wiping the floor...