Computer Stuck in IDE

[kmlucy]

So I have done quite a bit of searching, but have yet to find this particular problem anywhere online. My computer was working fine, I upgraded the graphics card (from an ATI Radeon 4870 to a nVidia GTX 660) and everything again worked fine for a couple weeks. I restarted it one day, and the BIOS couldn't find a boot drive. I had seen this before, so I tried changing the storage mode to IDE (from AHCI) and lo and behold, my computer started fine. Last time this happened, I bumped my motherboard battery and the BIOS reset, but I followed the general instructions to change it back (enable drivers through REGEDIT, and change the mode in the BIOS) and it worked fine. I tried that this time, but the drivers were already enabled, and it wouldn't boot in AHCI. I tried everything I could think of, with nothing working, until finally, out of desperation, I updated the BIOS. I set the mode to AHCI, and it started right up. Unfortunately, the first time I rebooted, it went right back to the same thing problem. The bios says AHCI, the drivers are enabled, but it can't find the boot drive. In IDE, it boots fine. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

My motherboard is an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 and the drive I am attempting to boot from is a Samsung 830 Series SSD.

 

[KSoD]

What version of Windows? Since you went to IDE, you will most likely have to reinstall with ACHI unless you know how to operate within RegEdit to make the proper changes.

 

[kmlucy]

Windows 7. I know how to enable the AHCI drivers in REGEDIT. They are all enabled, but Windows won't boot when I set the BIOS to AHCI.

 

[Frosty is a Snowman]

Most of the time when I encounter issues where drives will only boot in IDE mode it usually has indicated the hard drive is one it's way out.
But that may not be the case for you and could be a driver issue, but it is something to consider.

 

[xerolen]

Have you tried with a regular HDD yet? if a Regular HDD works fine its the SSD.

 

[kmlucy]

I haven't tried in on any other drive, but the SSD has is only six or so months old, and has shown no other signs of going bad. And given how stable everything is in IDE, along with the fact that it DID boot into AHCI, if only the once, leads me to believe that it is a driver issue, or some deeper issue with the BIOS. I have never heard of a drive failing that... specifically.
Thanks for the help.

 

[Joe C]

Do you have more than one hard drive, and if so, is it possible that windows 7 installed the boot files on another drive?

Is AHCI or IDE the default setting in your bios?




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[kmlucy]

I do have multiple other drives, but I'm positive Windows is installed correctly. I have tried booting from the other drives just in case, but no go. Right now it IDE, because that is the only way it will boot. As I said in the original post, when I try setting it to AHCI (even with the drivers enabled through regedit), it won't boot.

 

[Joe C]

leave it on IDE seeing as how the ssd drive currently boots from it, and disconnect all the other drives. If the ssd doesn't boot up with the other drive(s) disconnected then the boot sector might be on something other than the ssd drive.

I suspect that when you installed windows on the ssd with the other drives connected, that windows put the boot folder and BCD files on another drive other than your ssd drive

Read here to see if this issue pertains to you
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...le-disks/4be5f11e-75a5-4a55-b734-dd3dc2ea6dba




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[kmlucy]

Well, I fixed it. I'm not entirely sure how. I'm pretty sure the main thing I did was disable all other drives as available boot drives.