NUC5i5RYH Cannot Detect Boot Drives in Boot Order

[Kahya]

Hello,

I'm having a strange issue with my NUC5i5RYH. My both SSD's are not showing up in boot order and therefore I cannot install or boot anything from these drives. However, when I check the Advanced > Devices > SATA section in the BIOS, both drives are identified correctly.

The problem started to happen after I accidentally switched off the legacy mode in BIOS. (P.S. 15 minutes before that I made the BIOS update but the device was booting up fine after it.)

Until now I have tried the following solutions:

- BIOS settings reset to defaults

- BIOS downgrade and later on again update to the latest version

- Trying another SSD that works fine on another PC

- Trying to install a fresh Windows 10 (The installation wizard detects both drives but cannot install Win 10 on any of them)

I would appreciate any help here. Many thanks!

[AlHill]

Is there any installed OS on the drives to boot?

Doc (not an Intel employee or contractor)

[Kahya]

There was Win 10 installed on one of them. But now that drive is wiped out completely with all partitions. I deleted it while trying Win 10 installation.

[Kahya]

By the way, when I try to install Win 10 on any of the SSDs I get this error message.

[Kahya · Accepted solution]

Solved!

Seems like the issue was caused by MBR/GPT conflict. My both SSDs were MBR but somehow I was not able to install windows 10 to both of them today with a USB stick flashed for MBR installation. Maybe due to the new BIOS version, I am not sure.

Here is how I solved it:

- Connected one of the SSD to an external drive enclosure and connected it to another PC.

- By using disk management I have deleted all partitions and did not create any new ones. Also, right-clicked the drive name on the left side and converted it to GPT.

- I reconnected the drive to my PC and tried again but the problem was not solved because this time windows 10 installation was halted by an error message stating that the drive I want to install win 10 is GPT. It appears that the default Microsoft tool for bootable USB created the USB stick with MBR settings.

- Next, I flashed the Windows 10 iso with RUFUS this time by selecting the settings for GPT, which is compatible with UEFI and voilà! Windows installation with the new USB drive was able to install win 10 to my empty GPT drive.

Wow, it was a long day.