Dummy needs help with non compliant computer (will do what it wants on startup)

I recently got some stuff back and among this is a computer tower. It worked before. It has lot's of solid drives and I once numbered them but now I have a big problem

The problem
The computer will not go to windows 10, but instead tell me there is no boot device. When I hit "del" on my keyboard, it takes me to the setup screen. When I exit it, because of fear messing something up there, the thing will start up windows 10!

My current solution
Each time I want to start the computer, regardless the order of solid drives, I need to catch that one second where I can hit "del", it beeps one time and I get to a setup screen, that, I abort and then I can go to windows 10, everything works. All drives seem to be there in the Explorer, nothing is missing. It is very arduous to catch that second and if I miss, I need to hit the reset button, not sure if this is very healthy for the computer?

What I tried
- It says "Hit F8 to select boot device", there I can select either "P0 SATA" or "USB Device" but none works.
- It does not matter what order I plug in these four solid drives, my solution above will always work, but it never goes to windows 10 without me doing the above.
- I switched cables, there are red and black thin cables, both say SATA, I even found some spare cables but it does not solve the problem.

This is what I know about the computer, what it says at the setup screen
Asrock 970Pro R3
AMD FS4300 Quad Core Processor SPEED: 3800MHz
32768MB RAM

It is using Windows 10 but I remember, before, I could as well change it to something other than Windows 10. This option is not presented to me now. If it starts up after me exiting the setup, it goes to windows 10.


My question:
What can I do to tell the computer to do the same thing it does AFTER exiting setup but automatic? This would solve my problem.


Thank you for reading and braining

It sounds like there was a Dual-Boot system before, but not now, and that may be messing with your Boot Sector. Also, depending on the setup, it may think that it is RAID, and those drivers didn't load the "first time" but loaded after you "did the thing" to get to Win10.

May need to double check the Boot order in the BIOS, or make the other Solid States "non-bootable" so the boot loader gets to the UEFI partition and continues boot.

Check Virtualization and hyperthreading, turn them on, make sure the UEFI settings in the BIOS are on (You can try Hybrid at first and then strictly secure boot once you eliminate the problem one-by-one-by-one)

Other then that, I would need to see it (up close and personal like), to know more.
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ETAdd:
Other sites say that another problem is if the SSD is cloned, and you may need to fix the Boot Sector. I think I mentioned that above.

My wife's laptop had a similar problem when windows ten was put on it. My daughter who works on computers and software figured it out after working on it for about an hour and I do not know what she did. I think it only took about ten minutes to do that, but she spent the other part of the hour trying to fix incompatibility issues so my wife could use it.

She won't remember what she did, she comes up with the solution while experiencing the problem, she learned one shoe does not fit all. It can be fixed I think, but I haven't worked on computers for seven years now and am rusty as hell and unless I actually get interested in it, I can't do anything. Changes in the software so often made me uninterested, I have enough work fighting Windows 10 trying to take complete control of my computer each upgrade that my Blood pressure gets high from the frustration sometimes. Thanks Bill Gates for creating my health problems because you set the stage for changing things that did not need change.

a reply to: Skada
Thank you for answering!

So when I hit del and enter setup, is this the UEFI or the BIOS? I googled both and I think it is called UEFI, it looks exactly like this:

www.tenforums.com...

When I navigate to the boot window (the one with that T-shift stick), I can only select "P0 SATA" and "USB Device". The same options it will give me when I hit F8 after power on. I did look for "Virtualization and hyperthreading" but can I damage something if I screw up there?

It seems each time I do this, it takes a little longer for windows 10 to start up, that is worrying me a bit.

a reply to: rickymouse

I can only install programs and use them, I can not do my own programs or use the white/black text box, similar to what I see when I turn the computer on.

I only need a way to say my computer: Goto the setup and exit automatic and I am fine.


Add: I would be fine with just the computer going to the setup and I exit myself. Is there a way to tell the damn thing to always goto setup? Then I would just need hit ESC and OK but would not miss the one second window.


Add: Last solution I imagine would be using a paper clip in the keyboard on the DEL key everytime I shut it off so it will see that DEL is pressed and it goes to setup.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

Check google on how to enter the BIOS for your particular mainboard and firmware version.

From there as others have said you need to ensure the boot order is set correctly.

If the boot order doesn’t save it could be a dead CMOS battery.

Also unplug any external USB storage from the PC as if the boot priority for this is higher than your windows drive it will be attempting to boot from there. (This seems the most plausible based on your report)

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

UEFI = Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
A fancy, more "secure" bootup option that is needed mostly for win10x64 these days.

Virtualization and Hyperthreading should not damage the system. Overclocking the Processor will do that.

Have you tried unplugging all SSD except the OS to see if it boots normal, or in the Boot Menu of the BIOS it is listed as "P0 SATA" or similar. (I am wondering if this USB thing means it sees the/a SSD as a USB or if this is just a menu entry into the BIOS with nothing under it - manly used for Boot USBs or "Live Disk" kind of situation)

Or if there is more then one SSD but it is a "Spanned Image" of RAID configuration.

We need more techs in here to help.

I am just a monkey with a wrench, my tools are mainly bubblegum and duct tape.

originally posted by: ThatDamnDuckAgain
So when I hit del and enter setup, is this the UEFI or the BIOS?

That's UEFI, which is basically a modern version of BIOS. Sometimes UEFI is called BIOS just to avoid confusion.

originally posted by: Grenade
a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

If the boot order doesn’t save it could be a dead CMOS battery.

Also unplug any external USB storage from the PC as if the boot priority for this is higher than your windows drive it will be attempting to boot from there. (This seems the most plausible based on your report)

This, we should have looked at any USB drives plugged into the system. If the USB is a higher boot priority, and if the USB was once a Bootable Device, just erased, then the system will go to this device, see it as bootable, then panic saying there is no OS.

Given it seems that you can boot after its done a second boot you're looking at something like a drive thats on its way out or a power supply that needs an extra moment to warm up and get sorted.

Always possible as well its a corrupt bios where resetting it to factory by putting in a fresh battery.

Thanks to everyone jumping in to help me with this! Because this is going so fast I will throw everything together you all wrote:

If the boot order doesn’t save it could be a dead CMOS battery.

It's a big computer, not the foldable laptops, it runs on AC voltage and it once lifted a few fuses but I am not sure if it is connected with this failure now. The thing was toast afterwards but that is over a year ago and I got it fixed by a PC repair shop for lot's of money, but the shop had a similar problem with the solid drives.

And then I had an ex workmate look over it and he had to change some things to make it accept the new parts, also about a year ago. It worked after that for months. Then the computer was somewhere else (don't ask, it was involuntary) and since I got it back, I struggle with this problem.

Also unplug any external USB storage from the PC as if the boot priority for this is higher than your windows drive it will be attempting to boot from there. (This seems the most plausible based on your report)

- There was a USB stick in the back, I removed it but it does not change the behavior or what is shown in the UEFI.

Have you tried unplugging all SSD except the OS to see if it boots normal, or in the Boot Menu of the BIOS it is listed as "P0 SATA" or similar. (I am wondering if this USB thing means it sees the/a SSD as a USB or if this is just a menu entry into the BIOS with nothing under it - manly used for Boot USBs or "Live Disk" kind of situation)

- I unplugged everything except the one with the windows 10 on it, it still does not start windows right away.

Given it seems that you can boot after its done a second boot you're looking at something like a drive thats on its way out or a power supply that needs an extra moment to warm up and get sorted.

It runs since I started this thread with a few restarts and it keeps this problem. It does not matter if it is cold or warm, it seems.

ETAdd:
Other sites say that another problem is if the SSD is cloned, and you may need to fix the Boot Sector. I think I mentioned that above.

I first thought where it has been they cloned the drives (it says SSD on it so I think you mean that) but my handwritten numbers are still all on it, except one but that's not the one with the windows on it and it could be wiped off by accident.

As others have said, my hunch is that the PC wants to boot from a usb device. When it doesn't find a bootbale OS it errors out. Having said that, the boot sequence should automatically go to the next device, ie: the HD. It shouldn't require your input, so that's a bit strange.

As for the CMOS battery being dead, it's a possibility. A dead giveaway would be the system clock resets every time you enter the BIOS, so the time and date displayed would be totally out of whack. Once Windows loads, and if you're online, the date/time would correct itself.

a reply to: Encia22
Thank you too.

See my post above that I posted while you composed yours, I tried that. OK you all keep saying CMOS I googled that and it is a small button sized battery, do I remove it?

The time and date is ok, I remember it shows the right time and date.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

Yep, I saw your reply after I posted.

If the clock is ok I don't think the CMOS battery is the problem.

Do you have a Windows 10 installation disk? Normally there is a repair function (and some more geeky stuff) that is built into Windows, but it needs the installation disk. Have a look at this link for more info about boot problems.

How to fix Win 10 UEFI problems

a reply to: Encia22
No, the windows was always on it, there where other windows versions on it too but none can be selected. I do not need those though. I didn't buy the computer, it was a gift/handed down to me. But there are things on it that I like to recover. There is lot's of stuff on the hard drives that I want to read through.

Forget the computer if it does not work, I only need the things that are on it, really. I have my own laptop and I know I can get cases for these drives and make the external USB drives. That would be my fallback option and then I sell it as broken on ebay. I know it's not a slow computer so I may get four such USB cases for the computer in return and be fine.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

It probably needs someone to take a proper look at it who knows what they're doing, trying to remote diagnose these sorts of problems is very hit and miss as its always possible just to miss something thats blindingly obvious when its in front of you.

Given you've got it doing multi boot theres always problems that can occur with windows updates just getting its panties in a bind and at that point it can be easier to start again from scratch with a fresh install of just one version of windows so I wouldn't stick the machine on ebay just yet.

a reply to: Maxatoria
You might be correct, I just thought I would give it a shot here. I learned something, for sure.

So, I tried the paperclip trick and it looks like the key needs to be depressed when the computer is turned on. The savage trick didn't work haha.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

I like the paperclip idea, nice out-of-the-box thinking! It's a shame it doesn't work.

Keep at it, something has got to work.

a reply to: ThatDamnDuckAgain

If you are just needing the data off the drives, then you may want to create a "Live Boot Disk" or "Live USB". If you search, you can find an image and just use Rufus to put it on a USB and make it bootable.

But, if you can already get to the OS desktop, then you should be able to see what is on the other drives and then copy them off elsewhere. Make sure that you can see "Hidden files and Folders".

Edit to add, SATA are "hot swappable"; so, they can be unplugged and plugged back in while the PC is on, just don't pull the Operating System Drive out while it is on.