I have a Powerspec B662. Power on yields "No boot device found".

cmorg

The ASROCK UEFI does not show my boot device. Reset does start the computer properly. How do I get the Power On UEFI configured properly?

asianse

Did you install a new drive in your PC or installed a new OS/tweaked the BIOS?

You should be able to access the BIOS menu by pressing the Esc or F2 key when turning on the computer, then you can edit the boot order and GPT/UEFI

PowerSpec_MikeW

@cmorg

I'm unclear if on what your situation is. If this happened suddenly, like that your HDD just failed. If you're trying to switch the board to UEFI and disable legacy boot, then this is normal. You would need to format the drive to GPT and reinstall Windows assuming the drive is currently MBR. This will erase all data on the drive.

cmorg

The HDD did not fail. It works fine when I do a Reset. It is like there are two copies of the UEFI. One when I power on does not recognize the boot drive. The other when I use the reset button works normally and checking the UEFI it shows the boot drive. I have tried clearing the CMOS and it does not fix the problem but I suspect that it is part of the problem. It is possible that the battery was old and cleared the CMOS. I've read that that the UEFI default also clears the CMOS. I have replaced the battery.

This is not a crisis since I still have a fully functioning computer when I do a reset, but it is a problem that I would like to fix.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@cmorg

Okay. So your issue is that the drive isn't detected on a cold boot(Power off), but when you restart it, it's fine on the warm boot. Is this the factory drive? If not, which SATA port is the drive connected to?

cmorg

It is the factory drive. The correct boot order is Windows Boot Manager (M2_1: INTL SSDSCKKW256G8). Would I be able to find it if I used Instant flash (F6)? It is an ASRock UEFI.

I have not done any upgrades or changes to the computer. It has run properly for 6 years until now.

PowerSpec_MikeW

@cmorg

F11 on the ASRock board for the boot menu right on startup. Lets verify the issue first. Is this something you can reproduce every day when you first power it on? If so, next time lets either do F11 for boot menu or Delete for BIOS and verify that drive is not physically detected on the port.

Once this is confirmed the first thing I'd do is just to move the SATA cable from the drive to a different port on the board and see if the issue persists.

cmorg

I have moved the SATA cables but nothing is changed. The boot drive is not on a SATA port, it is at M2_1. I understand that its location is stored in the CMOS. I think what happened is that a weak battery cleared the CMOS and that info was lost. The cold boot POST can not locate the boot drive. The ASRock instant flash is supposed to locate it, but says "no image file found". It works with a warm boot and I can find it in Windows device manager (which shows it working properly). So the question still is how do I get the system to find the boot drive?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@cmorg

CMOS battery failing should be more obvious, it would revert to fail safes. The board looks for bootable devices when it boots, it would still find the drive. It's possible a setting changed in the BIOS in the fail safes that would cause it not to boot, but it's more likely to BSOD because of a storage mode change.

Instant flash is looking for compatible BIOS ROM files. It'll scan any drive connected for these and tell you if it locates a file.

This may potentially be a problem with the system coming out of S4 state. Lets explore that first. Go to Control panel - Hardware and Sound - Power Options - Choose what power buttons do

Click "Change what options are currently available" and uncheck "Turn on Fast Startup". Reboot the PC. The next time you shutdown you'll go into a true shutdown, S5 instead of S4. It'll be a little slower starting up, which wont be terribly noticeable with an SSD and it'll confirm if that's where the issue is.

cmorg

I did what you suggested but it had no effect. I don't think that there is a problem with the BIOS, it is with the UEFI.

Superuser.com says that UEFI can not detect windows partitions. It keeps a list of OS in the NVRAM and the OS adds its own entry there pointing to its own *.efi file.

The question now is how to get that entry back into the NVRAM (CMOS).

PowerSpec_MikeW

@cmorg

It doesn't distinguish between a Windows and Linux partition, but it understands partition table types. It will search for the EFI system partitions and figure it out on its own. If you put another drive into that system, it would still locate it and boot from it. BIOS on the other hand would just read sector 0 on the drive and load that boot code, it's more basic. You used to see a setting some board to either "Add boot options" or "Path to boot" where you could manually specify the EFI file to load. In case you had multiple EFI files and need to as an example tell it to use bootx64.efi.

If you want a better look into this, you can create a bootable EFI shell and initiate a boot manually. Just FS# to select the drive, you can use 'ls' like in terminal to view the directors. Basically you'll just navigate to that EFI\BOOT folder, and run BOOTX64.efi and the system will boot. Take a look at a Windows installation flash drive. If you insert that drive without your drive attached or detected, it boots to. It scans the drive and finds that folder path, EFI\Boot\BOOTX64.efi and that what it loads. The order in NVRAM is only relevant for the priority. So if you insert that Windows flash drive, it'll still boot to your SSD, since that's the boot option recorded in the NVRAM variables.

You can check what's in the NVRAM from inside the OS. Go to an elevated command prompt or powershell and type: bcdedit /enum firmware

That'll show you all the stored entries. Verify your you see your hard disk volume and path there. This data is non volatile.

Your issue is I believe a little simpler, that it's not physically detecting the drive on startup. And you can confirm this from the EZ Mode tab in your BIOS. I suspect it'll show M2_1 is N/A, which means it isn't there. So it's something that's happening only on that cold boot. I'd test this next time to confirm. F6 to toggle out of Advanced Mode and check. I think you've just got a part that's wearing on on the system at this point. Drive and PSU are both likely, the latter due to capacitor aging.

cmorg

I checked the NVRam and it looks to be all in order. I'm not understanding why the BIOS shows M2_1 is N/A in cold boot but "boot manager" in warm boot. If it is there in warm boot how can it not be there in cold boot? Is it that it is not there or is it that the system can't find it?

If it is a part wearing out, is there a way for me to check or does it need a technician?

PowerSpec_MikeW

@cmorg

There are three voltage rails on your power supply. 12V, 5V and 3.3V. 12V is by far the most used, with peripheral devices generally being powered by 5V. USB as well. 3.3V is available to the PCIe slots, but I don't believe it's often utilized. Mostly it's used by RAM and M.2. RAM is going to be a lot closer to the 24 pin. Without going into too much depth here, I think your 3.3V rail is sagging and effecting the M.2 on a cold boot.

Difficult to prove without swapping parts around. The easiest solution here is throw in another M.2 drive, or another PSU and see if the problem remains. Replacing either part shouldn't be a problem.