Can't boot to SSD by default

Bought a new HP Win8 machine w/1tb hd. Finally broke secure boot. Partitioned drive so C drive would fit in my SSD, eventually cloned C partition to SSD. I can get it to boot the SSD if I (esc) at boot to specify 1-time boot to sata0 (SSD). If I boot non-stop, boots to sata1 spinning hd (where I got the SSD image from).

Talked to HP, they won't help, as original hd is fine. They eventually told me I need to look into BCDEDIT. Been on this forum and it looks quite confusing (to me). Here is a screen shot with both drives connected:



Can someone do me a big favor and give me the best bcdedit command to boot from sata0, as default drive, (instead of sata1) which is my SSD. I've looked at several examples in this forum, did not find exactly what I'm looking for. I'm also afraid of breaking my system as it took quite a while to get here.

I've also read horror stories of easybcd and had a hard time finding a trusted source, so am thinking about staying away from that (unless someone could give me a good link to d/l it).

Thanks.

A nice utility that can even automatically fix that.
EasyBCD 2.2 Download - TechSpot
But, are you sure you have a right BOOT order set in the BIOS ? Sounds like you are using only temporary boot order settings from BIOS.

Did you set SATA0 as the boot device in the BIOS Boot section? The one time boot is just that, it will only use that boot option for that one boot. On the next boot up it will use the default BIOS boot order, what ever that is set to. The one time boot option is meant for doing installs etc or booting from alive CD.

I installed easybcd. I have no idea what to do in that program. I was hoping to find something like Boot from SATA0 or 1, but not that simple. I'm afraid I may make the system un-bootable. I don't understand the concept of this bcd. What I'm trying to do seems very easy (was VERY easy prior to Win Boot Manager): All I want to do is always boot from SATA0, which is connected to the ssd drive. If I just power on not striking any keys, it boots to the SATA1 drive (spinning hard drive that the system came with). If I could just turn off the Windows Boot Manager and use the legacy bios settings, that would solve my dilemma.

I'm very familiar with the old scheme: in bios define device boot order (floppy, dvd, hard drive), then in the hard drive priority, specify the order of drives to try.

Yes, Legacy boot specifies the above device boot order and the drive section starts with SATA0, then SATA1.

If I hit Esc (HP pc) upon boot, I can change the one-time boot to SATA0, and it boots from the ssd fine, but I would like the default to be the ssd drive, not spinning hard drive.

Can you tell me what needs to be done inside easybcd? I don't even know which drive to install the program on (ssd or hd), but would assume I would boot from that drive. I really would appreciate some specific easybcd tools and what I would do in that tool.

Thanks again.

As I expected, I played around a very small bit with easybcd and my ssd won't boot. Get Windows failed to start... I went thru HELL getting the image on this ssd don't want to attempt that again. Luckily, hard drive still boots. Looks like time to trash this ssd and give up <grin>.

There are two ways to change default boot drive one is a bios setting the other is to swap the data cables on the hard drives.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2855-system-repair-disc-create-windows-8-a.html

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5132-recovery-drive-create-usb-flash-drive-windows-8-a.html

If you haven't done so already, follow one of the above tutorials to create a system repair disk, or a system recovery drive. Once you have one of those, shutoff your computer and unplug the HDD and plug the SSD into the first SATA port. Then reboot your system with either your recovery disk or flash drive. The tutorial shows you how to get to the option to do an automatic repair, which I believe should add the boot sector to your SSD so that it will boot on its own. If it is like Windows 7, you may need to run automatic repair up to 3 separate times.

Thanks. Created win8 64-bit repair cd, booted it with just ssd connected to sata0. The tutorial was not the same as the prompts on the pc. Actually saw: US kybd layout, troubleshoot, advanced options, only see sys restore, sys image recovery, auto repair, command prompt DO NOT SEE UEFI firmware settings. That's probably because I got rid of secure boot in the bios.

Luckily, I did an Acronis TI backup, did a successful restore of the image to the SSD.

I wish it was as easy as swapping cables. Actually put SSD on SATA1, HD on SATA0, still boots to HD by default. Legacy bios default boot definitely says boot to SATA0 1st.

I'm sure I'm not the only person to install a SSD in a win8 pc. Amazing how much time spent on this new Win Boot Manager. Sure wish I could get the legacy boot order working like older pc's.

captnorm said:

I wish it was as easy as swapping cables. Actually put SSD on SATA1, HD on SATA0, still boots to HD by default. Legacy bios default boot definitely says boot to SATA0 1st.

Click to expand...

The way you have said that is correct it will boot the HD first as it says boot SATA0 first and you have it as the HD. If the SSD is not boot able and it is the default boot drive and the bios does not it see as boot able it will boot the next device it finds. You have the HD set as the boot drive.

When you cloned to the SSD did you also clone the hidden System Reserved partition? How do you know it is still booting from the hard drive and not the SSD?

GOT IT!

Here are a few screen shots:
















































I opened UEFI Boot Sources and found I can disable it. Then saved and it followed the legacy boot order of SATA0 as default boot device (ssd).

THANKS for all your help guys.

Re: When you cloned to the SSD did you also clone the hidden System Reserved partition? How do you know it is still booting from the hard drive and not the SSD?
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It took many attempts to backup/recover the C partition from the original 1tb drive, to the ssd drive. Looking at Disk Management, there is only 1 partition on the ssd drive. No hidden partitions.

At this point I have no idea what you did or how you got it working. When you say "I can disable it" what exactly did you disable, UEFI mode? I could have sworn there was a guide in the tutorials on how to clone your install to an SSD but couldn't find it. It sounds like you got it working so that's the main thing.

Your SSD Drive may be the first drive in the boot order, but Windows looks for the boot loader, and that can be on another drive. In my case, it is on my IDE drive but Windows 8 is on my Hybrid drive. It looks to the IDE drive for the bootloader, but then boots the OS on the Hybrid drive.

This can happen if you added the SSD drive later than an original Windows 7 OS and installed 8 Onto the SSD drive, the OS will be on the SSD drive, but the bootloaders are still on the original drive. So the IDE drive has to be the first drive in the order, and that brings up the Windows 8 Boot GUI, were I can choose between Windows 7 on the IDE drive or 8 on the Hybrid drive. You may have something similar going on there.

For best results, you would have to remove all other drives from the system and install Windows 8 on the SSD drive as a fresh install, that way, the SSD drive will have the Bootloader AND the OS on the same drive. Then, you can add in the other drives, and if another drive has a different OS, all you would need to do is select that drive from the system Boot Selection Menu. And you won't have any conflicts, each drive will have a separate bootable OS on them.

(edit) Ah, i see you put Windows Boot Loader as trhe first device., this can only be done on new systems that have that feature in the BIOS. I can't do it, with my old motherboards.

In my screen shot above (Boot Order, UEFI Boot Sources), I hit <enter> while on that line in the BIOS. I had the option to disable, so disabled UEFI boot, assuming my Legacy boot order would be used. That's what solved it, it booted from SATA0 (my SSD drive).

alphanumeric said:

At this point I have no idea what you did or how you got it working. When you say "I can disable it" what exactly did you disable, UEFI mode? I could have sworn there was a guide in the tutorials on how to clone your install to an SSD but couldn't find it. It sounds like you got it working so that's the main thing.

Click to expand...

captnorm said:

In my screen shot above (Boot Order, UEFI Boot Sources), I hit <enter> while on that line in the BIOS. I had the option to disable, so disabled UEFI boot, assuming my Legacy boot order would be used. That's what solved it, it booted from SATA0 (my SSD drive).

alphanumeric said:

At this point I have no idea what you did or how you got it working. When you say "I can disable it" what exactly did you disable, UEFI mode? I could have sworn there was a guide in the tutorials on how to clone your install to an SSD but couldn't find it. It sounds like you got it working so that's the main thing.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Ok, you booted in legacy mode not UEFI.