I have a riddle for you:

I have a riddle for you:
You have a computer with 4 drive bays, occupied by a 120GB SSD for the OS, a 500GB SSD for applications, and two 1TB HDDs. You're running out of space and replace one of the hdds with a 4TB HDD. Then you copy your files from the remaining 1TB to the 4TB, remove the 1TB and restart, everything works as intended.

Now you replace the 1TB HDDs with the 1TB HDD you removed to install the 4TB, in order to copy its contents to the 4TB HDD as well. You try to boot and get “Reboot and select proper boot device”, every time from there on out. What went wrong, how do you fix it?

Hint 1: BIOS recognizes the SSD with the OS and it's #1 in boot order
Hint 2: the error persists even after unplugging all other drives

fuck off it's not a riddle we aren't your own personal tech support

you dun goofed

What do you suggest, asking on the dead containment board that is /wsr/?

Try clearing cmos

Also there exist places outside Sup Forums you know. I'm sure there's some /r/techsupport or equivalent :^)

>there exist places outside Sup Forums you know
Don't assume I'm lazy and just posted here because it's the first best thing. I've already spent an entire night googling and trying every suggestion I found. It's really exhausting to sift through "make sure the power supply is plugged into the wall properly".

You could at least not try and hide your question using a shit riddle.

How about you just tranfer from the replaced 1tb to the non replaced 1tb, then use the non replaced 1tb and the 4tb?

This has happend to me before, pretty much the MBR is on the wrong drive. Maybe you reused a drive that was from an old install and when you installed windows on the SSD it saw the MBR on the other drive and said "fuck it ill put it there to keep things simple"
Which in turn fucks you over now.
I fixed this by running Windows recovery disk. Like 10 god damm times with different combinations of drives connected in different sockets.

Power consumption on 2nd 1tb drive is so high there's not now enough to pass POST. Put that drive in a caddy and copy over USB, also replace PSU with something above 105watts.

Ditto could also be drive temps, direct a table fan into the bays.

Also lrn2write personal tech support questions that aren't shit

It doesn't boot at all anymore.

I've been using the SSD as boot drive for 2 or 3 years. None of the HDDs have ever seen a windows install. The 4TB HDD is brand new and everything worked fine until I reinstalled the 1TB HDD. Now it won't boot with all other drives disconnected. Currently downloading the recovery disk with the laptop, but shit internet is shit.

PSU is plenty, drives are cold. I'm not a retard.

Try using the boot menu to boot off each drive to see if any work.

How do I boot from a drive with no OS?

>I've been using the SSD as boot drive for 2 or 3 years.
The Windows installer doesn't really care, it might still put the MBR on a non-OS drive just to fuck with you if you have any other drives connected during the install. It's especially prone to happening if said drives already have some leftover MBRs from previous installs.

That's why it's called trying, dumbass. You don't know if any of the drives are bootable unless you try.

i'm too lazy o read OP and the rest of the thread, but if you're using windows sometimes even order of sata connection can fuck up your boot because windows uses quick boot or someting.
In another words if I change sata connector of my ssd from sata_1 to let's say sata_4 it will fail to boot until I plug it back

Some place that isn't Sup Forums.

Then unironically try reddit. They my be cancer but for something as basic as tech advice I'm sure you could find something there

That one 1TB drive you removed second (if im getting this right) contains your MBR. Simply reinstall it on your SSD (explicitly pointing to it during the process) and you're good to go.

Are you running Windows?
That piece of shit OS sometimes install bootloader (or some dependencies for boot) to DIFFERENT HDD than OS is, so to boot windows you have to use both HDDs.
Happened to me twice. Never gonna come back to this trash.

try diferent os, burn live linux to usb

Pretty much this, OP. Reinstall your bootloader on a proper drive (SSD in your case).

>boot windows you have to use both HDDs
It worked with only the SSD and the new 4TB HDD though.

Not sure about Windows, but do you know how sometimes GRUB will fuck up the loading because the order of drives has changed (In case where you, instead of referring them by UUID somehow went for the classic sdX scheme and then started fucking things up by switching drives in random order)? Can the same thing happen to the Windows bootloader, making it confused where to boot from? In any case, first thing I would do (considering your BIOS settings seem to be alright as per your words) is to reinstall it.

Although in your case it looks like the system can't find the bootloader AT ALL considering the message.

>What went wrong, how do you fix it?
You were using Windows.
Move to a platform that doesn't use drive letters in 2017.

This happened to me too on Windows 7. When I bought a new hard drive and installed windows on it for some reason the boot files weren't added to the new drive so my new drive would never boot without the old hard drive being present.

I had to boot windows via my CD and do some shit through the command prompt. It was on some website so I don't really remember. I had to select the drive through the prompt and repair the bootdrive.

Look up the commands you need and only connect the drive that has your windows install to your mobo.

Sweet Jesus it's fixed. The recovery CD initially said there's no windows installation on any of my drives, couldn't fix the bootloader because of this. Went to cmd >select disk 0
>select partition 1 >active, from there on the windows installation was detected again and could be fixed.

What windows memery caused my C drive to go inactive!?

Now I'ma go out and get myself a sata to usb cable, not gonna plug this HDD back in and risk running into the same horseshit again.

Thanks for your support mates.

Yeah sda1, sdab is sooo much better

It is.

kys

no u

This is why you unplug all other drives when you're installing Windows

>This is why you unplug all other drives when you're installing Windows
Windows was already installed.

Go to tomshardware forums. Don't ask for help on this shit website. There are neckbeards on Tom's hardware that are available 24/7 helping lost souls such as yourself.