Bootloader not always working?

[TheCipher]

Hi,

I've had my system up and running for over 2 years now. I have a dual boot system 2 SSDs Mac/windows 7. Smooth sailing no issues.
About 3 weeks ago, I upgraded my windows SSD with a bigger drive, and used the old one as back up. (FAT so I could use it with both OS, but so far have only used it with MAC)

That was 3 weeks ago, and had no problems with that, I don't believe that is the issue, but not sure.

Now suddenly the last few days the backup SSD has been ejecting itself when in MAC

Then I noticed when booting up I get stuck in the bios screen, nothing happens. This was happening more frequently. (its happened n the past 2 years from time to time, but very very rare)

Then it started to just boot directly into windows, bypassing the bootloader all together. If I disconnect the backup, same thing. if I disconnect the windows SSD it will then go directly to Mac with the bootloader appearing. And usually once I do all of this reconnect everything it works as it should. But then eventually it does it again randomly.


I'm really not sure what it could be,is it the bootloader, or could it be the motherboard? I'm hoping this is a common problem that someone can help me with.

Thanks
Jim

 

[MIcahTautkus]

I had a similar problem using exFAT and at first it made me think the hard drive was corrupt, but I was told that it's unstable for use as a system partition. Maybe FAT is the same, but I'm not sure.

 

[TheCipher]

It might be exFAT actually. Can't remember now lol

However I was just coming back to say I think its actually a faulty cable on that drive thats the problem. I took the drive out and used it with an external connection and the drive works fine. (I was able to transfer 88GB, previously i could barely do 2gb) Put it back in my tower and used a different cable and it seems to be ok now. I'll have to give it more time to be sure.

But that was actually my next thing to do, format it to Mac journaled. I'll see how this goes though