Question 2 hard drives 2 operating systems, take one out & PC won't boot

[johnno]

Hi, I have 2 SSDs. One has Win 7 on and the other Win 10. I would like to take the Win 7 drive out. But when I do this the pc will not boot as I guess the boot sector is on that drive. Is it possible to get the drive with 10 on to boot on its own?
Many thanks

 

[mikeymikec]

My default tactic would be (with the Win7 drive disconnected), boot the PC from Win10 install media, repair option, command prompt, and run the bootrec commands (bootrec /fixmbr, /fixboot /scanos, /rebuildbcd), but I'm wondering if that will work given that the boot partition is probably on the Win7 disk. Historically I don't think the boot partition was 100% necessary (the files in question can be on C drive = the Windows OS partition) but I don't know if that changed with Win10.

 

[johnno]

Ok, thanks. Will have a look.

 

[johnno]

ok, I cannot get it to boot. Ran from usb and it can't repair.
I reinstalled windows 7 on the other driver but i still cant get acces to boot from the win 10 drive

 

[johnno]

when running /rebuildbcd it finds 2 installations: C:windows and add it to boot list yes, E:windows add to boot list yes. It then says Element not found?

 

[deustroop]

Save your data from the 10 drive on another drive then disconnect the 7 drive and reinstall windows 10. Then hook up the 7 drive as storage.

 

[johnno]

Save your data from the 10 drive on another drive then disconnect the 7 drive and reinstall windows 10. Then hook up the 7 drive as storage.

i think that's what i'll have to do. just don't really wont to have to reinstall windows and apps etc.

 

[C1]

I think you can do it (ie, get the original Win10 to boot).

Given that Win10 will be the primary OS do the following. Download and make a bootable version of "MiniTool" and Easy BCD.

Use MiniTool to move/relocate the Windows 10 partion to create 500mb free space at start of SDD Memory. (May also have to make it a partition - not sure here; try first without making freespace a partition.)

Remove the SSD w/Win 7. (You do not want this SDD with the boot partition on line, otherwise you'll need to delete or disable the original boot partition.)

For completeness, ensure that the Win10 SSD is on the primary serial channel (see MB manual).

You should be able to now try to use one of your downloaded software tools to create the boot sector for Win10. If still trouble, use your Win10 media to attempt an OS repair.

Good Luck

 

[johnno]

Thanks for the replies I sorted it. The drive was 3rd inline in the list of drives. I tried many times with the above suggestions. It wasn't until I tried again with 2 other HDDs and the SSD unplugged. This time when I booted from the USB media it allowed me to repair start up. Previously it just threw up an error.