Please help figure up this boot disk issue

Caveman

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 1999
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I'm sure this is something "easy" but I just can't seem to crack the code and figure it out.

Config: Win 10 Asus G75 1J Laptop with 1 TB HDD and 500 GB SSD. The 1 TB HDD that came with the laptop had a functioning version of Win 10 installed on it, but was never used. It just say there for the past year.

Because... I installed a 500GB SSD and installed Win 10 on that drive and have been using it for the past year with no issues.

Now today... I want to make a dual boot system for Win 10 on both the SSD and HDD.

So... I reinstall/refresh the Win 10 OS on the SSD and all is nominal -- works fine as expected.

I also wanted to refresh the Win10 HDD (that had a bunch of bloatware), and it "appears" to reinstall just fine (finishes with no errors, etc...) THEN...

I go into the bios, and I'm able to select the 1TB drive as the boot disk. Then I restart and I get an error that says "disk does not contain bootable media, etc.."

At this point, I thought installing Easy BCD would help me fix the issue so I booted back into the Win 10 SSD and installed Easy BCD. At this point, I made both the SSD and HDD "boot options" (in Easy BCD).

And... then I go back into the Bios and it shows the 1TB disk (and the 500GB SSD) as physically there... AND I can see the BOTH disks from Disk Management in the OS of the 500GB SSD, YET... I can't select the 1TB drive as a "boot option" in the bios. Huh???

What in the world is going on??? Please help!

As an aside just thinking out load... Maybe I wiped out the UEFI along the way? I can get into the bios, but I'm not sure how to access the UEFI graphical type interface that I've seen on the Asus MoBo that runs my desktop rig.
 

deustroop

Golden Member
Dec 12, 2010
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354
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I suggest that you forget the approach of reinstalling to the HDD and instead clone the SSD to the HDD. Download Macrium Reflect (free) from
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.
Here is their FAQ on cloning. Piece of cake.
http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW/Cloning+a+disk
You will be able to inspect the volumes on the target drive (HDD) before launching the cloning operation to see what the Windows installer did to it that it will not boot.Note that if you see a volume of the windows install that was intended for the HDD but was placed on the SSD instead, (is why the HDD cannot boot ) unselect it from the volumes to be cloned .Once the clone works, you can delete that errant volume from the SSD.
A caution when installing Windows in the future: have only the target drive available in the system for the operation and disconnect/disable any other drive .
 
Last edited:

BonzaiDuck

Lifer
Jun 30, 2004
16,341
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Some of these problems with the boot config data arises because the BCD files are located on the wrong drive.

Again, as deustroop suggested, get Macrium Reflect Free. Make the repair disk in one or the other OS on your system -- which is itself bootable from optical media or USB. Then, once the Macrium repair disc has booted into its GUI, select "Fix or repair boot problems" or howsoever it is worded. Select one OS discovered by Macrium as the installation you want to boot from. Sometimes, only one OS is shown. If both are shown, then you can select them for dual-boot. If only one is found by Macrium, it is because the other one wasn't assigned a drive letter in the OS install that was discovered. Assume you have the more difficult of those two possibilities.

You would let Macrium restore only the installation it found. Then boot into that Win 10 installation and assign a drive letter to the other volume for Win 10. Reboot to Macrium, select the "fix boot problems" option again, and both OS's should be discovered automatically by Macrium. Complete the operation of making both of them bootable -- restoring the Windows multi-boot menu.

That should do it.
 

Caveman

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 1999
2,537
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Some items that I've discovered this morning:

1. I enabled Metro bootloader in Easy BCD, and I was actually able to choose my HDD from the dual boot list at startup and boot into it with no problems (can't do this without Metro bootloader though). Still the disk didn't show up in the BIOS as a boot device option.

2. I realized that my HDD does not have an EFI partition on it - I manually created one using DISKPART, and now the disk shows up in the BIOS as a boot device

3. As suggested above, I downloaded Macrium and cloned the SSD to the HDD. When I tried booting into the HDD, it just hung (SSD still worked fine).

4. Then I unsuccessfully tried reinstalling Win 10 on the HDD leaving the cloned Recovery, EFI, and MSR partitions alone. It told me the partitions are out of order and that the EFI partition is NTFS. I can look at it in disk management, and it says the EFI partition is FAT32.

My goal is to have both disks as boot devices in the BIOS, and I want to be able to boot into each OS without having to rely on Metro bootloader. Can't seem to get there from here.

I'm still at a loss. I'll try BonzaiDuck's suggestion next...
 

deustroop

Golden Member
Dec 12, 2010
1,915
354
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If the boot fix does not fix, then consider such further as

The cloning operation is fairly robust and if the drive hangs when cloned from a bootable disk, then you should try again because the Macrium process works generally.What partitions will be cloned ?

The windows install seems a little off, leaving existing partitions ? not highly recommended.
 

Caveman

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 1999
2,537
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There is something I'm not understanding about how boot loaders work, GPT vs MBR, EFI, etc.

If I wipe the HDD clean, then Windows doesn't create an EFI partition on reinstall (which makes the drive not seen as a boot device in the BIOS). Should I just convert the drive to MBR? Would this solve the problem? I only need 2 partitions on it.

I cloned the whole drive which consists of 5 partitions: Recovery, Efi, Reserved, OS, and data.
 

deustroop

Golden Member
Dec 12, 2010
1,915
354
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Can you explain why you say,

If I wipe the HDD clean, then Windows doesn't create an EFI partition on reinstall ?

Windows 10 installed 4 primary partitions here .The disk uses GPT rather than an MBR partition table. (I'm not sure switching the format will matter).Three show in Windows disk management, viz., recovery, efi and primary (ntfs formatting). Macrium shows a 4th partition, "unformatted primary", 16 MB, "hidden" from Windows or reserved . An install of Windows 10 should give those partitions. According to your details, there is no NTFS primary (assigned a Letter, boot)). You have "OS and data".

1) Although the partition arrangement looks off to me I am no expert and if it boots your SSD then a clone should work.

2) Alternatively I suggest you consider creating a Windows 10 install dvd from the latest iso from here

http://windowsiso.net/windows-10-iso/windows-10-creators-update-1703-download-build-15063/

This is bootable from a dvd player so disconnect the SSD
Install it using the "new" tab to wipe the partitions on the HDD. Then go into disk management to finish up.
 

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
248
106
Both disks should be GPT (recommended) or MBR. From what you are describing, it sounds like you are split, which will not work for what you are trying to do.