Reboot and select proper boot device

[HCHTech]

Had a Win7 workstation from one of my bigger business customers in this weekend. It's a 2-year old custom build, Asus MB, AMD FX 8350 @ 4GHz, 16GB RAM, and an AMD Firepro V4900 Video Card with a gig of video memory. Pretty snappy for it's day. Client reports that after rebooting after a windows update on Friday, he was greeted with the message to "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device".

I removed the hard drive to backup the data, ran full hardware tests on the desktop and ran the drive through a long test with gSmartControl on my Linux box. All results are happy. I put it back together and take a look through the BIOS, everything looked ok, but I loaded the defaults anyway. Still no joy. Booting from a Win7 DVD would not let me get into the repair options - "This version of recovery console is not compatible with your version of Windows". Hmmm. I try a different Win7 Pro disk, same answer.

This is an architecture firm and they run a dozen or so LOB apps, including the full Adobe suite - I wasn't looking forward to reinstalling all of those on Monday, so just in case, I set the hard disk aside, put in a fresh disk and reinstalled Windows. All went without problems, I loaded the system drivers, and hit up Windows updates for the final 30 or so updates not included in my image. During this process, I must have rebooted a half-dozen times or so. The last of the updates load, I reboot one last time and - I'm greeted with the same damned "Reboot and select proper boot device" message. So that's how my weekend is going to go, huh?

I take the thing apart again and switch the SATA port the hard drive is plugged into, it still won't boot but for some reason this time it will let me get into recovery console when booting from a Windows disk. Now we're getting somewhere. I check to make sure the disk is active (it is), I try to rebuild the boot record, but get the "No windows installations found".

Ok, so I reimage the disk and start over, more carefully this time. After the install but before I load any updates, I reboot a half dozen times, no problem. I load the system drivers, no problem. I check BIOS again, everything looks ok. I check the version, it's the latest one. So I load the updates again, doing a handful at a time this time, all seems ok, rebooting after each set. I get down to the last couple, and and back comes the error. Same as before, I can't get into the repair options if I boot from a Windows disk.

Grasping at straws now, I download the latest BIOS file from ASUS, and install it (it's the same version already installed, but whatever). On reboot, I'm looking through the BIOS settings and see that secure boot is now enabled. Asus is a little funny about how you turn that off, but I do that and the darn thing boots right up like it oughta. I hold my breath now, install the original hard disk that it was dropped off with, and sure enough it works. My pride is a little wounded, but at least now I don't have to spend all day Monday installing software with the client breathing down my neck.

So...near as I can figure, there was a corruption or something in the BIOS, that was somehow triggered by one of the latest Windows updates? That doesn't make any sense, but it fits the fact pattern.

 

[MichaelEC]

Have you looked at the MS site to see what each of those updates are for, or at least the updates immediately preceding the problem?

From what you have posted, the facts do fit the scenario. I would investigate those updates.

It sounds as if one of those updates is somehow corrupting the bootloader.

 

[Mainstay]

Wouldn't you simply conclude that the MB needed a BIOS fix to be compatible with the latest build of W7?

I wouldn't conclude corruption, but compatibility issues.

Nice sleuthing work though... painstakingly tedious and time consuming though it must have been.

Edit: I think the simplest way to find the culprit would be to read the release notes of the BIOS updates... I'm sure one of those patches will point you in the right direction, if you really wanted to know the "why" of the problem.

 

[Markverhyden]

The OP said that the current BIOS on the MB was the same as what he downloaded. Personally I've had a handful like this. That why reflashing BIOS is near the beginning of my troubleshooting steps.

 

[Mainstay]

The OP said that the current BIOS on the MB was the same as what he downloaded

Apologies, I misread / jumped to conclusions.

With secure-boot and UEFI making more and more boot issues for our shop, we've been doing a lot more BIOS flashing then we have ever done before.

When reading @HCHTech's post I was going, "flash the BIOS, flash the BIOS..." so I missed the part where he said it was the same version.

 

[Diggs]

If it was Win10 I'd say the drive was in RAID at one time and still has a stripe on it. Windows quit recognizing them on a on a recent update for Win10, why not Win7.

 

[HCHTech]

I wish I had though of flashing the BIOS earlier in the process, that's for sure. Had I tried that at the beginning, this would have been a 10-minute job. The latest bios for that board is from June of 2014, I think, so it's not new - somewhere in the middle I did google around about recent windows updates mucking with the MBR or whatever - nothing much there. Thinking back, I can't believe I decided to save the original hard drive - that sure saved my bacon once I figured it out!

Chalk another one up to the "education" column -- All's well that ends well, I guess -

 

[GTP]

somewhere in the middle I did google around about recent windows updates mucking with the MBR

I had this a couple of times and while "googling" came across an article about MS fooling with/rewriting BIOS settings. Just spent about half hour trying to find the article without success. (Should have put it in Bookmarks!)
Has anyone else heard/read anything about this?

 

[HCHTech]

MS fooling with/rewriting BIOS settings.

Wow - that's a first....and worrisome.