I got this message when I tried to start one of my computers. It was running Windows 7 Home Premium. There are 2 disks in it. One is the original 1 GB disk and the other is a smaller SSD.
I figured that the problem is with the SSD, so I tried swapping the two drives. It seemed to boot one time, but I noted that the two drives were swapped. I expected the larger drive to be C and the smaller one to be D, but they were reversed. I don't understand why.
Later, I tried this again and got the error message.
I found that it would book OK with only the smaller drive installed on SATA0, but it would not boot with the larger drive on SATA0.
After booting on the smaller drive, I made a Windows 7 System Repair Disk. I booted from the larger disk and tried to use the repair disk, This failed.
I next tried booting with SATA0 on the smaller SSD and SATA1 on the larger disk. It failed.
When my system boots, I see a brief options screen from the boot ROM with an option for "ESC=BootMenu". I clicked ESC and then in the boot menu, selected the smaller drive. This worked.
Next time, I selected F10 to get into the Setup Program. Under advanced, I found that the system had been set up to boot from larger hard drive, even though it was on SATA0. I changed the boot order to prefer the smaller SSD. I rebooted. This worked. Hurrah!
The older larger hard drive had originally been the only drive on this machine and was fully bootable. My guess is that my system had been using the boot manager on this drive all along and that somehow, the boot manager on this drive failed. So, the problem is not really fixed, but rather made irrelevant.
Next step was a bit of an experiment. I downloaded AOMEI Backupper Standard (free). and cloned the SSD to the larger hard drive. This took several hours. BUT - when I was done, I configured the computer with only the large (newly cloned large hard drive) on SATA0. It booted. Voila - Success.
After that, I put the whole thing back together and found that it booted from the SATA0 SSD. The other drive was there as Drive D, but was showing with a capacity the same as that of the SSD.
I guess I could run a partition program to get at the remainder of that disk. I think I will save that for another day.
UPDATE - I believe that eventually this stopped working and a repeat of the process did not help. Eventually, we learned to work around the problem.
I figured that the problem is with the SSD, so I tried swapping the two drives. It seemed to boot one time, but I noted that the two drives were swapped. I expected the larger drive to be C and the smaller one to be D, but they were reversed. I don't understand why.
Later, I tried this again and got the error message.
I found that it would book OK with only the smaller drive installed on SATA0, but it would not boot with the larger drive on SATA0.
After booting on the smaller drive, I made a Windows 7 System Repair Disk. I booted from the larger disk and tried to use the repair disk, This failed.
I next tried booting with SATA0 on the smaller SSD and SATA1 on the larger disk. It failed.
When my system boots, I see a brief options screen from the boot ROM with an option for "ESC=BootMenu". I clicked ESC and then in the boot menu, selected the smaller drive. This worked.
Next time, I selected F10 to get into the Setup Program. Under advanced, I found that the system had been set up to boot from larger hard drive, even though it was on SATA0. I changed the boot order to prefer the smaller SSD. I rebooted. This worked. Hurrah!
The older larger hard drive had originally been the only drive on this machine and was fully bootable. My guess is that my system had been using the boot manager on this drive all along and that somehow, the boot manager on this drive failed. So, the problem is not really fixed, but rather made irrelevant.
Next step was a bit of an experiment. I downloaded AOMEI Backupper Standard (free). and cloned the SSD to the larger hard drive. This took several hours. BUT - when I was done, I configured the computer with only the large (newly cloned large hard drive) on SATA0. It booted. Voila - Success.
After that, I put the whole thing back together and found that it booted from the SATA0 SSD. The other drive was there as Drive D, but was showing with a capacity the same as that of the SSD.
I guess I could run a partition program to get at the remainder of that disk. I think I will save that for another day.
UPDATE - I believe that eventually this stopped working and a repeat of the process did not help. Eventually, we learned to work around the problem.
