Question Adding SATA drive to new Windows 10 install stops booting

[Darklighter]

This is a first for me:
Just did a major upgrade on my roommate's computer (CPU - Intel 11th Gen/RAM - 16GB/Mobo - Gigabyte Z590 Gaming X/Storage - 2TB Firecuda NVME). I installed Windows 10 on the new NVME drive, no issues, even after several reboots. When I try to add one of his old SATA drives (2 SSDs and a WD mech) as a secondary, it stops booting after the BIOS option. If I disconnect the old drive, it still won't boot, and I have to reinstall Windows.
In the BIOS I have made sure the drives show up, that the NVME drive is set to boot first, even tried enabling CSM support and specifying the specific boot order of all the drives - nothing helps. It's like if I connect one of his old HDDs it kills the new Windows 10 install. As far as the SATA controller itself, I tried disabling it, still no luck - and besides, I still have a SATA DVD burner connected the whole time, and it works fine with new Windows 10 install.
I have encountered many issues in my 25+ years of computing, but this one is a head-scratcher. Any help appreciated!

 

[Ranulf]

Off the top of my head... do the old drives have data on them, maybe parts/partitions of the old win10 install? Years ago I had win7 decide to install the swap partition on a second ssd in the new system (a buggy 840 evo no less) and the second you took that drive out, the system wouldn't boot or repair the install.

 

[Darklighter]

Off the top of my head... do the old drives have data on them, maybe parts/partitions of the old win10 install? Years ago I had win7 decide to install the swap partition on a second ssd in the new system (a buggy 840 evo no less) and the second you took that drive out, the system wouldn't boot or repair the install.

Thanks for the reply... I get your example, and have had a similar issue... turns out that when you install Windows 7+ with more than one drive attached, it places boot files on ALL the drives, making it nearly impossible to remove one without pooching the install, In this case, I installed Windows 10 fresh on a new NVME (no other drives attached), then tried to attach old Win 7 drives (both primary and data) - but each one resulted in a pooched Win 10 install.

 

[Ranulf]

Hmm, that is just plain weird. Makes me wary of taking any of my old win7 drives and hooking them up to win10 systems now. Good luck on finding the answer.

 

[Shmee]

This is very odd. Have you tried updating the motherboard BIOS? If you already have the data on a drive backed up, or once you do so,(like with using a live Linux to transfer data) you could try wiping one of the drives and see if the system behaves then. If you do end up wiping a drive, you should make sure it is initialized GPT, as I assume right now the old drives are all MBR. I wonder if there is some issue there with different partition tables? Still, this whole thing is weird and doesn't make sense.

Also, have you tested these SATA drives, or at least checked SMART?

If you cannot get the NVMe to boot Windows 10 when a blank SATA drive is installed, I would suspect some weird hardware/firmware issue with the motherboard.

 

[MDub]

This is a first for me:
Just did a major upgrade on my roommate's computer (CPU - Intel 11th Gen/RAM - 16GB/Mobo - Gigabyte Z590 Gaming X/Storage - 2TB Firecuda NVME). I installed Windows 10 on the new NVME drive, no issues, even after several reboots. When I try to add one of his old SATA drives (2 SSDs and a WD mech) as a secondary, it stops booting after the BIOS option. If I disconnect the old drive, it still won't boot, and I have to reinstall Windows.
In the BIOS I have made sure the drives show up, that the NVME drive is set to boot first, even tried enabling CSM support and specifying the specific boot order of all the drives - nothing helps. It's like if I connect one of his old HDDs it kills the new Windows 10 install. As far as the SATA controller itself, I tried disabling it, still no luck - and besides, I still have a SATA DVD burner connected the whole time, and it works fine with new Windows 10 install.
I have encountered many issues in my 25+ years of computing, but this one is a head-scratcher. Any help appreciated!

Maybe a port/lane conflict?

Which M.2 socket are you using for the boot NVME drive? If it happens to be M2M_SB, then you can't use SATA3-4 or SATA3-5, which unintuitively are the two leftmost ports in the sata port block.

Take a look at the SATA port diagram and "Installation Notices for the M.2 and SATA Connectors" pages in the manual (Section 1-7).

 

[igor_kavinski]

Do the SATA drives have any boot partitions? You could try deleting the hidden boot files from them if you don't intend to boot from these drives in future.

 

[Darklighter]

Hello -
Thanks for the replies... turns out I had to make the drives raw again (or format them on a Win10 system) to get them to work. I now have a working system. I would conclude that Win10 will not recognize Win7 partitions when connected directly to the SATA ports on the mobo. (I did already check for lane conflicts between the NVME and SATA, it was all good).

Thanks again everyone!

 

[igor_kavinski]

If the filesystem turned RAW and required formatting, that points to some sort of corruption. I wouldn't put anything too important on these SATA drives.

 

[Darklighter]

Sorry, I meant I had to connect the old drives to another Win10 system with a caddy and remove all the partitions (make them "raw"). Also adding a simple volume partition afterwards works too.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Maybe your Win7 partitions were Dynamic volumes instead of simple volumes.