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I recently built my own computer and installed Windows 7. Recently the computer won't load the OS automatically when i power it on. If i want to start Windows, i have to press F12 to enter the Boot Menu and select the Hard Drive specifically and then Windows 7 will boot and work perfectly fine. My Motherboard is a Gigabyte 880GMA-USB3, and in the BIOS the Hard Drive is selected as the first boot device. I have a Antec 550 watt PSU and all of the devices power up correctly and function fine. So my question is how do i get Windows to boot automatically without having to go into the boot menu every time i turn on my computer?

When i push the power button, the computer posts, loads the BIOS and then sits with a black screen with a flashing white underscore cursor. If I let it sit like this, nothing changes and it unresponsive to any input. I does not give any error messages or beeps to indicate anything is wrong, it just fails to boot Windows on it's own.

I've tried multiple (at least a dozen) times of turning off and powering on my computer to see if it will load Windows on it's own with no luck. I've tried unplugging all unnecessary hardware (Graphics card and DVD drive) to see if they affect the loading process, but still no fix. This problem started after i left the computer on overnight installing a huge amount of updates for drivers and the OS. This problem was not present when i first installed Windows 7 and when no drivers were installed on the computer, this being the first time ever the computer was powered up. When Windows is loaded, it does not give an error messages as to why it does not load automatically.

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You've described what the computer doesn't do, but nowhere told us what it does do. You need to follow the standard litany. Tell the world what your computer is actually doing (error messages, prompts, sounds, flashing lights, and so forth) instead of what you want it to do. – JdeBP Aug 31 '11 at 19:40
I added some more information about what the computer does and what I've tried. I hope this helps. Unfortunately my computer doesn't give me much to go on, that's why I'm hoping someone has more insight than I do. – Sleeper Aug 31 '11 at 20:47
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Try unpluging all USB devices. That includes the keyboard and mouse...I have seen this problems many times before on XP, Vista, and (just recently) Win7. – SgtOJ Aug 31 '11 at 20:52
There might be a faulty device. Is there any card reader built in into your system? Disable them. Check the boot priority list, disable everything except your hard drive. – Martheen Cahya Paulo Aug 31 '11 at 22:13
Make sure that you're using the most recent stable version of the BIOS. You can download it from Gigabyte if not. – Joe Internet Sep 1 '11 at 2:18
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2 Answers

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Sounds like a motherboard issue. If BIOS found the drive and the bootsector was at fault, BIOS would say so.

Unplugging all the USB devices may or maynot necessarily help. The next thing I would try is to boot from a DVD. Select the DVD drive as the bootdrive and boot the machine. If you don't have a DVD drive, plug in a bootable USB. Boot the machine, and select the USB as the bootable drive. Sometimes it takes to reboots for the USB drive to be explicitly listed.

If that works. I'd make sure the Bootsector was ok on the drive by using the "Repair Windows" option. Eliminate as many factors as you can.

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Your answer had a ton of great ideas, but the first mentioning of unplugging my USB devices was real answer. Thank you for your help though! – Sleeper Sep 1 '11 at 7:01
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up vote 1 down vote

Try unpluging all USB devices. That includes the keyboard and mouse... I have seen this problems many times before on XP, Vista, and (just recently) Win7

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