Strange boot issue with Vista. (Will not boot from HDD without DVD)

Hi folks.

My woes with Vista / HTPC continue....

I had to replace my HDD because Vista thinks it's corrupt. XP does not
mind it though.
So, I buy a new 500GB SATA2 and put that in. Put in Vista HP DVD and
start the process. Again.
MB is set to boot from DVD, then HDD.

Install and everything is ok.
Run all the patches etc and vista looks good to go.
Change bios back to boot from HDD first and disable all others.
Reboot.
Missing boot device.
huh?
Change back to DVD first then HDD and try again.
Same issue.
insert Vista DVD, ignore "press any key to boot from CD" and the
machine boots fine from HDD.
Remove DVD from drive, boot failure.

So basically, the machine would not boot (No boot disk found) when the
DVD was not the first boot device and the DVD was not in the drive.

I started all over again and dropped the partition (30GB) and
recreated it. This time, all is well. Machine even boots when the DVD
is in the next room...

It was a simple, yet very annoying, thing to fix.

Any ideas as to why it might have happened?


Cheers,
Crispin

 

Try to install the drivers for your sata drive to recognize it at the
boot.

 

It did have the drivers installed. In Device manager, it listed the
correct drives.
Two things though: SATA2 drivers at native to Vista and are installed
anyway, if it were a driver issue, why did it work the second time
round? I suspect it's somethign dodgy with the way vista created the
partition.
The first disk, with a partition created by vista at install time,
also "misbehaves". Putting the disk into a XP box, the disk is fine.

 

It is a problem with your boot configuration. You should be able to fix it
with EasyBCD. It's always wise to backup first.
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1