Halp...spontaneous & excessive boot configurations in BIOS!?

Well, I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the best thread, so if the moderators need to move it, please feel free.

Let me preface this by saying that my computer is running fine. Well, even. I run weekly scheduled defrags, and have no malware detectable by avast/malwarebytes/SAS. I keep Windows updated, but I control what updates are applied and when (except some of those sneaky Windows Defender updates, grrr).

However, there does seem to be a very strange problem with my BIOS.

I stumbled across this issue a few weeks ago when my computer started getting finicky about booting while having my external HDD connected. It had been doing so without issue for almost a year, and suddenly it decided it wanted to attempt to boot from the USB port, prior anything else. Since then I have had to disconnect the external HDD every time I reboot (I shut the laptop down every evening).

So, I attempted to enter the BIOS to double check/change the boot order. Sometimes these things just go wonky for whatever reason, and I figured this would be an easy fix.

Before I go into what I saw in my BIOS, let me jot down my setup:

--MSI GT780 laptop
--BIOS: Aptio Setup Utility, American Megatrends, ver. 2.10.1028
(Note: Upon release of this laptop, there was a known issue with the BIOS wanting to boot from USB when an external HDD was connected, though mine booted fine with it connected until a couple of weeks ago)
--Win7HP
--Core i7 2630QM
--8GB RAM
--GTX 560M GPU
--2 internal HDDs, identical Seagates (ST9500420AS)
--CD drive
--Intel Centrino 6230 Wireless network card
--Realtek PCI GBE Family Controller (onboard ethernet)

OK, so here are some pictures of my BIOS hidden behind the spoilers. Please note that I haven't touched anything in my BIOS since receiving and setting up the laptop in August of 2011.

Spoiler

Main tab -- this looks fine; note the "Boot" tab present

Spoiler

Advanced tab -- also looks fine; not the "Boot" still present

Spoiler

And, here is where it gets weird. When I arrow over to access the boot tab, I get a lag for about 10 seconds, and then I see this...


And it keeps going....


And going...


And going...


And going.

The End.

And, just for good measure, here are the Security and Save/Exit tabs...

Spoiler

Ok, so you will note 2 issues:
1. The main menu for the Boot tab is missing. We can't access it. When transitioning from the Advanced tab to the Boot tab, it essentially is selecting one of the internal HDDs, automatically. This makes it impossible to modify the boot menu in any way. Even if we try to press "back" once in the menu, it pops us over to the Advanced tab, not the Boot menu.

The Boot Menu should look something like this:

Spoiler

2. There are a metric crapton of what seem to be various boot options. We have no idea where these came from, how long they have been there, or how to get rid of them. It doesn't seem possible to select any of them and delete them.

What we have done so far:
Nothing. Really, we are flabbergasted. I've done a few web searches, but can't seem to find anything that seems even remotely similar.

The most obvious thing would be for us to flash the BIOS, but this petrifies me a fair amount, in that I could succeed in bricking my computer. Not to mention most of the best tutorials somehow assume that you still have access to a floppy drive, and they seem to get incredibly complicated if they involve a USB.

My other hesitation is the fact that the computer is running great, besides this new hassle with needing to unplug my external HDD. I hesitate to do something that could really mess it up. I was going to finally install Linux on my second internal HDD, and do a dual-boot system, but considering the boot options in my BIOS are so messed up, I'm not sure that's a good idea

Does anyone have any ideas/thoughts/guidance for us?

Thanks for reading and apologies for the epic length post!

 

Try unplugging the power cable from your CD/DVD drive and then accessing the BIOS again. After that try unplugging the HDD. Could be faulty hardware (the dvd drive or the HDD) causing the problem. Worth a shot I suppose and a simple quick fix solution if it is the drive.