System starts using BIOS flash to access Windows
System starts using BIOS flash to access Windows
I once accidentally pressed the power button on my PC without intention. It didn’t respond then, but after restarting it appeared the boot menu. I assumed the boot sequence was incorrect, so I checked the BIOS and confirmed the boot drive was listed first. Thinking the boot sector might be damaged, I cloned the drive and used the original one. That worked—Windows Recovery showed up normally. However, when I tried to restart or shut down, it wouldn’t boot at all. It kept insisting on the wrong boot device. I suspected a motherboard problem or an issue with PCI handling. After updating the BIOS, I re-flashed it and finally got a stable Windows installation. Still, the drive wouldn’t start without a BIOS update via USB key each time. It felt frustrating having to manually reset it. I was told this could point to a dead CMOS battery, but that didn’t help. Any suggestions?
Ensure classic boot is active, avoid EFI mode. If already classic, change to EFI mode.
I'm not sure about this, but I think I'd start with a clean Windows setup. It's possible the previous installation wasn't working correctly, and a fresh install could resolve those problems. If it still doesn't work, then there might be an issue with your hardware. Doing this test with a spare disk would be ideal.
I've been dealing with the BIOS flash issue for a while. Today I tried a fresh approach. I removed everything except the boot drive, swapped out my four 4GB sticks for one 8GB stick, took out the CMOS battery, performed a factory reset, and then restarted it. It worked—my drives and RAM were restored. Still not sure what caused the problem or how it was fixed.