boot options depend on available media
Did anyone of you having this 'problem' consider to connect/insert the intended boot device
before entering the (advanced) CMOS settings in order to define the boot order?
You say 'no'? Then just do it and it might help you out immediately.
If the answer is 'yes' and it didn't work either you might be a victim of too much 'Legacy BIOS Experience' ;) - then please read on...
The Asus E35 and E45 motherboards are using EFI respectively UEFI BIOS. Means ... they are way ahead and somehow a bit smarter and more intuitive to use than what most of us have been using for years now. It's not only mouse support in CMOS settings that is new - several other things are too.
First time experiencing myself what today's (U)EFI BIOS can do automatically and how they prevent most users from misconfiguration I must admit to have felt a bit like using control... investigating the logics behind the (U)EFI BIOS was (out of it's sight on the particular system) always right. All I needed was confidence and leaving legacy expectations (and legacy behaviour of myself) behind.
So when it comes to defining the boot order of a particular system these boards
only show the actually available and bootable devices. They will not show any 'maybe entries' in a dumb standard list like legacy BIOSs. Defining boot devices in advance (e.g. before they are present) is not intended. Devices not already chosen as boot option that aren't present anymore won't be available until reconnected at boot.
Just think of (depending on the model) 2-4x USB3.0, 10-12x USB2.0, 1-2x eSATA, 4-6x onchip SATA, maybe 2-4x secondary SATA onboard and how much bootable devices could be added to all this via add on cards in 1,2, 4 or 7 slots and last but not least the option of a network/PXE boot on top.
I wouldn't want to navigate through them all - just the present ones should be enough... so keeping things simple is imo best choice for today's highly integrated multifunctional motherboards.
So the simple solution to your problem is:
If you want it to appear among the bootable media, insert the boot CD, USB stick, eSATA HDD, ... of your choice
first and then reboot and enter CMOS settings to change boot priority and boot order. Remember: you won't see more to choose from than your board does!
Hint for the ASUS E35-/E45-Users:
On the 'Boot'-tab you first find 'Boot option #1 ... #4' and scrolling down you find
- Hard Drive BBS Priorities
- Network Device BBS Priorities
- CD/DVD ROM Drive BBS Priorities
- <anything else> BBS Priorities
depending on the used hardware.
The latter are subgroups to define and refine 'the order of the legacy devices in this group' you can call in when setting 'Boot option #n' above.
Boot order itself goes by defining 'Boot option #n'.
If after all the boot media of your choice still refuses to appear on the 'Boot' tab then load the 'Default Values' or 'Optimized Values' for your board once and try again.
True 'Legacy BIOS victims' sometimes tend to configure too much ending up with a confused motherboard instead a confused user. ;)
I just had an Asus E35 M1-M Pro here to try with (BIOS ver 0506 x64 - Jan 26 2011).
So I took a case and a fanless 300W-PSU and
- 4 new unused Samsung SATA harddisks connected to the chipset-/onboard controller
- 1 Sil3114 4x SATA PCI controller - no disks connected
- 1 Intel Pro 1000 GT PCI - additional Gigabit NIC, bootable
As expected
On first boot the (U)EFI BIOS allowed to choose booting from any of the four SATA drives or to perform a network boot via the Intel NIC. Nothing else.
There are two subgroups: 'Hard Drive BBS Priorities' containing the four HDDs and 'Network Device BBS Priorities' containing the Intel NIC.
After feeding with computer sweets (USB mini adapter with 4GB C10 Kingston microSDHC) and booting again I got two more entries: 'Generic USB SD Reader' and 'UEFI: Generic USB SD Reader' - both being available to boot from. 'UEFI:...' may be chosen directly ... but that's not our intention.
- > The 'Generic USB SD Reader' is listed in the 'Hard Drive BBS Priorities' subgroup and therefore you will have to put it #1 there before you can see it when setting the boot option.
Now adding a LG GH22NS40 DVD-RW DL to onboard SATA5 and rebooting I get another new entry to boot from as well as a new group to define priorities for CD/DVD drives if necessary. As this is the only optical drive there is nothing else to do - it is immediately available as boot option.
Please note that the four SATA ports of the Sil3114 add on card didn't come up during all this. I'll not be able to chose a boot device connected to this card until it is. During this little testing I always had been fully able to change boot device and order at my descretion among those devices that were listed.
Finally I consider this behaviour easing setup and being a feature rather than a bug or annoyance.
Hope this helps the next one coming across this thread searching for an answer.
noplease
