This evening I put a new hard drive which will be the second internal and SSD still is the first internal inside my desktop. My operating system of Windows 10 Home Premium is on first internal drive with C drive and the new hard drive is on second internal drive with D drive. My problem is that every time I boot up the desktop and got the D drive on the screen which I don't want this. How do I change the order for boot up with C drive as main and D drive as second. I did tried with both this evening -- Boot Options (F12) and BIOS (Del). And did not solve this yet. By the way my desktop is Acer Aspire M3450 Gaming desktop.

Your help would be appreciated.

Thank you,

John

I'm sorry but I do not understand your question.

1) Is it that the system boots to Windows but you don't want the D: drive to show?

2) Is it that the system does not boot to Windows but rather says that there is no OS to load or something such as that?

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OK I hope this time I will explain more better than my first message that I posted here. Look below:

My hard drive doesn't have any operating system at all but every time I start up the desktop and got into D drive that's where the hard drive is? My main drive is C drive (solid state drive) and have the operating system of Windows 10 Home Premium. Andy my question is that why is my desktop boot up to D drive after turn on my desktop. Can this be fix to make sure that the C drive boot up after turn on the desktop?

Hope that you understand what I am trying to say about this

Thank you,

John

I'm sorry but I still don't understand.

When you start the system does it get to Windows?

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No and it doesn't get to Windows and all I got is a black screen with top left messages. Can't remember the whole message but something with " bootmgr " I will write down what the screen message said about this.

John

Here is the message that I got from my desktop monitor with black screen. Look below

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

Now my question is that can I fix this to make sure that my desktop always boot up in C drive with Windows 10 not with D drive with my train simulator game in this hard drive and no operating system at all.

John

OK, I get it now. You could go to your BIOS and change the boot drive priority, not boot order but you probably do not need to mess with the BIOS. Just swapping the data cables between the drives should do the trick.

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Jay -- I did try to swap the cables between the drives and made no difference. Then I went into BIOS and look at this but did not change anything because I am not sure till you tell me what to do with the changes. And here is below:

Boot Priority Order

1st Boot Device [ EFI Device ]
2nd Boot Device [ Removable Device ]
3rd Boot Device [ Hard Disk: ST2000DM... ]
4th Boot Device [ CD&DVD: HL-DT-ST-DV... ]
5th Boot Device [LAN]

Below from the Boot Priority Order

> EFI Device Priority [ Press Enter ]
> Hard Disk Drive Priority [ Press Enter ]
> Optical Disk Drive Priority [ Press Enter ]
> Removable Device [ Press Enter ]
> Network Device Priority [ Press Enter ]

Do I have to change the Boot Priority Order to make the changes? If yes, then how do I change the boot priority order? Just " enter " of one line. Look at below that I will make the changes but first want to ask you if this is correct or not.


> EFI Device Priority [ Press Enter ]
> Removable Device [ Press Enter ]
> Hard Disk Drive Priority [ Press Enter ]
> Optical Disk Drive Priority [ Press Enter ]
> Network Device Priority [ Press Enter ]

Is that in right order after the changes but how to I make the changes by hit " press enter " then go on next to second line with hit " press enter ". Or what is the other way to do this to make the changes.

Thank you,

John

I have no idea as to which drive is the SSD and which is the new drive.

Like I said I'd just swap the data cables between the drives before I went to the BIOS.

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OK the second drive is Solid State Drive ( Kingston 240 GB ) and the third drive is the Hard Drive ( Seagate 2 TB ). You will see the first box with Boot Priority Order and the word with 2nd boot device Removable device -- that is Kingston 240 GB Solid State Drive and 3rd boot device Hard Disk -- that is Seagate 2 TB hard drive. Hope this time will help you to know what is Removable Device and Hard Disk too. Yesterday I put the new hard drive in. Yes I did swap the cables and no difference to make. Still the same with boot up the desktop and end up with the word BOOTMGR is missing and Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart.

Thank you,

John

Just to be sure nothing happened to the SSD when installing the new drive I would disconnect the new drive to see if it will then boot. Make sure that both cables on the SSD are securely connected at both ends. Well only the drive end on the power cable as it would be connected to the power supply on the other end.

If you want to do it through the BIOS go to Hard drive Priority and move the SSD to the first position.

I cannot tell you exactly how to do this in your BIOS as different BIOS use different keys to move things; often page up and down or the number pad +/-.

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The SSD drive should not be showing up as a removable drive. Why is that?
I agree with Jay that step one is to remove the new hard drive and see if the PC then boots to the hard drive.
My guess -- and this is only a guess, is that your boot order of EFI device as #1 is causing the system to jump to the hard drive. Disabling EFI may resolve your issue -- I believe that there's a specific process to install Windows to an EFI drive and your SSD may not be set up as an EFI device, therefore the PC refuses to boot to it with a valid EFI device, the new hard drive, attached.

Update: This link suggests that the pointer in your EFI BIOS is looking at the hard disk that you just installed as the EFI boot device. Apparently this can be edited, but I have no idea how to do that. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... 35(v=vs.85).aspx

-steve

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stephen boots
Microsoft MVP 2004 - 2020
"Life's always an adventure with computers!"

You may need to actually go into the Hard disk priority section and see what order the drives are there.

Want to say thank you to Jay, Steve and David too for your messages that you posted here this evening. Jay -- I will unplug the cables from the hard drive to see if that is normal to boot up the desktop tomorrow morning. Will let you know tomorrow about this. Steve- I see that about editing the EFI BIOS and I am not going to touch this at all because I don't know more about this also it's very new to me about this. David -- I am not sure what you mean that I may need to actually go into the hard Disk priority section and see what order the drives are there. Let me know what you mean about this.

Thank you to all

John

Few minutes ago this morning I have unplug the cables from the hard drive and leave the cables on for SSD in my desktop then boot up the desktop. All went well with no problem and see the Windows 10 logo on the screen before sign in. I wonder if I can reformat the hard drive and see what happen next with this. There's no operating system in that hard drive only Steam games -- Train Simulator 2016.

Thank you,

John

You highlight or arrow down to the actual entry that says Hard Disk Drive Priority (Or any of the Priority ones). When it is highlighted press the enter key and you will be taken to another menu that lists the order the items are accessed for booting. You can then arrange them so they are in the proper order.

Thank you to all who have replied to my messages here. And got good news that my desktop is fixed with boot options. Now boot up to the main drive with C:/ not D:/ Yay Also want to say thank you to David Vair to give me the tip what to do in Hard Disk Drive Priority. I changed from the hard drive to SSD as the main drive and next with the hard drive.

Thank you again,

John

Yep, your earlier posting showed that it was trying to boot off the Seagate drive. You can go into any of the priority ones to check if there are items present and their boot order. You also do the same thing with the Boot Priority Order. Highlight the option and hit enter then you will be given the option to choose what you want your boot order to be.

Glad that you got it John.

David, mayhaps you can straighten me out on something. I had suggested just swapping the data cables between the drives but it didn't work yet, on my system, it would have done so. I know this from experience and my BIOS also handles drives through EFI. Is it just a difference between the BIOS where mine possibly actually looks at the SATA port as to priority where John's looks at the actual drive ID?

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Jay, swapping the cables wouldn't have changed the boot order - it would still properly identify which is the hard drive and which is the SSD, and would still have chosen the hard drive to boot to. That's my guess, anyway.

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Patty MacDuffie
Computer Haven Administrator

Live Long and Prosper
Mr. Spock

I am still running an older BIOS not so not sure exactly how all these newer ones work. I believe the problem was that he has 3 drives in the system and it was looking to boot off the third drive, switching the cables between the first two wouldn't have made a difference in this situation.

Ahh but I have fixed this type issue on my media system just by switching the cables when I added a drive. Still my question didn't match the situation of this thread. John having his drives handled via EFI tripped me up. My drives are not handled by EFI but rather UEFI.

I think it possible but cannot prove that UEFI just looks at the SATA port not the drive identifier. I won't see the issue again as I now have my SSD on the SATA 0 port so nothing can come before the thing. Where I ran into an issue is that my SSD used to be on a SATA line further down such as SATA port 3 or 4. When I added the drive it was on a lower numbered SATA port such as 1 or 2. The system would not boot as it was trying to boot the new drive. I switched the cables and all was well.

I don't know if this would work on a fully UEFI system as mine is not. I have a hybrid between an old style BIOS yet the drives are handled vis UEFI. Still it would seem that, at least in my hybrid case, that UEFI looks at the SATA port for drive boot priority, not the drive identifier. Of course, if I go to my BIOS, it will give the drive description for each connected but, I think, it reads the info on each port and displays without the identifier having anything to do with priority.

I solved any future issues by putting my SSD on SATA channel 0, my data drive on SATA channel 1 and my media drive on SATA channel 2. My Blu-ray burner is on SATA channel 5. So why the jump in SATA channels when it comes to my burner? UEFI doesn't natively really like to boot to an optical drive; it makes you hit the 'F#' key that will bring up the menu to allow you to chose from what to boot... Ask BB about this... On my system I can set the SATA channels 4 and 5 to be non-UEFI. This allows my optical to boot without having to go through hoops.

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I still think that the issue is that the config for UEFI Boot was looking for the new hard drive. When that hard drive was not present, it went to the next item on the list in the boot order. Moving the desired drive to number 1 in the boot order resolved it. Based on the description of the options available, selecting the order of UEFI drives was possible under one of the options. I don't know that this would have worked if the SSD is not configured as a valid UEFI boot source. And I'm still confused about the listing of that SSD as a removable drive....

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stephen boots
Microsoft MVP 2004 - 2020
"Life's always an adventure with computers!"