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SSD needs to be alone during Windows install?

zCypher

zCypher

Diamond Member
Is there any truth to that? Does it make any difference if HDD drives are attached to the system while you do a fresh install on your SSD boot drive? If so can anyone explain to me why it matters?
 
Someone else here will probably chime in with the exact reason why, but that was how I did my installation.

Counter-question: what's the point in connecting the spinner, if the OS installation is entirely contained on the SSD?
 
I did some poking around, and somone made the observation that there was a possibility that the master boot record could inadvertently end up on the wrong drive, rendering the system unbootable if that drive were ever to be disconnected.
 
Hmmm.... Doesn't seem to have happened, BUT it did pick up the Win 8 developer preview I have on one of my WD Black drives, so instead of booting straight into the install I just did on the Vertex3, it gives me a menu asking which to boot from.

All my drives were just connected, I just happened to remove the Vertex2 and install the Vertex3, I didn't think anything of the other drives till I was already in the middle of the installation.
 
yep.. Windows sometimes puts the MBR on another drive if its attached at the same time as the primary during install. Only had it happen to me a fewt
times out of dozens upon dozens of fresh installs.. but I've seen many others have the issue. Never could figure out why sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.

Even had the MBR from a raid array put over to another single drive once and when the single drive was removed?.. No boot. When I reattached the single drive?.. booted just fine. Removed it?.. no boot again. I had to do a disk repair to fix it.

Weird stuff this software sometimes.
 
Sometimes Win7 can F up the master boot record if there's more than one drive attached during installation. I've seen it a few times (XP too).

Plus you never know if you'll get too clicky and repartition/format the wrong drive.

Safest to just unplug everything but the drive you intend to install on.
 
So other than that, nothing I need to be concerned about? I just used MSCONFIG to remove the Win8 item from the boot menu, so it's all back to normal.
 
Hmm, if you have more than one drive that is capable of booting, then it is possible for it to parse that drive, and add that entry to the boot loader.
I guess it could be confused to which drive is the actual boot drive.

Normally, and for the vast majority of users, this will never happen though.
 
Vista/7 puts a tiny hidden system partition on the drive. If a second drive is in your system I've seen the partition end up there.

Also, if your drives already have data on them... I haven't done it personally (always unhook extra drives) but I've known people to accidentally have Windows Setup format+install on the wrong drive (they were so SURE it was the right one) thus losing all un-backed-up data.
 
Evem better. I have a 1TB WD Green drive in my HTPC. When I re-installed Windows 7, I deleted my first partition, and then re-created it and re-installed. But it also toasted my secondary partition, it started showing up as "RAW".

So be careful installing Windows 7 to a drive that is partitioned, it seems like the installer has bugs and will possibilty nuke the other partitions at the same time.

I checked my drive for bad sectors, and the SMART data for re-allocated sectors, and there was nothing wrong with it. So I figure it must have been a software error with Win7.
 
I learned a long time ago to only have the os drive hooked up when doing a clean install. The windows installer will often place system files on the other drives if they are present and can cause problems later if one of those drives is removed.
 
VirtualLarry said:
So be careful installing Windows 7 to a drive that is partitioned, it seems like the installer has bugs and will possibilty nuke the other partitions at the same time.
Click to expand...

I always prefer to do away with the 100MB bootpart and preformat all my drives before installing W7. Never had an issue over nearly 100 installs so far. Yeah.. I do a lot of SSD/config testing. lol
 
zCypher said:
Is there any truth to that? Does it make any difference if HDD drives are attached to the system while you do a fresh install on your SSD boot drive? If so can anyone explain to me why it matters?
Click to expand...
i have never had any problems with my setup, i have a 2TB black that i use for storage and have always left it hooked up during installs.
 
hclarkjr said:
i have never had any problems with my setup, i have a 2TB black that i use for storage and have always left it hooked up during installs.
Click to expand...

yeah.. but for every 100 guys like you?.. there's one that says he had issue. Just a corner case scenario and it's often better to be safe than sorry.
 
This happens to me all the time, I always need to disconnect the other hard drives. This is one of the most annoying "features" in Windows. Putting the MBR on random drives really pisses me off.
 
Why would you not want to only have your boot drive connected for installation? How hard could it be to go plug your other drives in afterward? Install them, just don't plug in the power or data cables.
 
WhipperSnapper said:
Why would you not want to only have your boot drive connected for installation? How hard could it be to go plug your other drives in afterward? Install them, just don't plug in the power or data cables.
Click to expand...

It's a bit of a ball ache, especially if your PC is in an awkward place.
 
WhipperSnapper said:
Why would you not want to only have your boot drive connected for installation? How hard could it be to go plug your other drives in afterward? Install them, just don't plug in the power or data cables.
Click to expand...

It's not hard at all, in fact that's what I did last time but this time around it just slipped my mind and I kinda thought, uhhhh shit am I now going to have something go wrong? Everything has been fine though.

Good to hear other experiences with this, definitely an easy to avoid potential problem.
 
Windows has always tended to mess up the bootloader if there is more then one drive plugged in while installing.
It will split the bootloader between the windows drive and another random drive of its choice. Making sure the OS drive is first in bios boot order and in SATA/IDE port number is irrelevant here, windows does what it feels like and messes it up.

This causes issues if you remove the secondary drive, but also if you change drive order around, etc.

The only safe way to install windows is to only have the OS drive plugged in. This forces windows to put all components of the bootloader on that one drive which is then mobile (you can move it to another computer and as long as you select it as the boot drive from the bios it will boot up that windows instance)

zCypher said:
It's not hard at all, in fact that's what I did last time but this time around it just slipped my mind and I kinda thought, uhhhh shit am I now going to have something go wrong? Everything has been fine though.
Click to expand...

If you already installed it, here is what you should do, unplug all drives except OS Drive and turn on PC. If windows loads then you lucked out and it put all components of the bootloader on the OS drive. If it fails to boot then it split them up and just keep in mind that you will have issues if you swap drives around.
That being said, there is hardly a reason to waste your time fixing it now, just fix it if it becomes an issue in the future.
 
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is there a way to install a boot loader after windows is installed? I tried the startup repair with the windows disk, but it didnt work. Ended up reinstalling, did it right that time 😀
 
Honestly it's not a big deal even if I do have to reinstall it. Takes very little time installing from USB, and all my stuff is backed up on two 1TB WD Black drives. I'll have to unplug everything but the SSD and see if it still boots. Interesting stuff.
 
diskpart
sel disk x
sel part y
active
exit

As long as there is a valid OS on the drive (either ntldr in the root of that partition, or Windows 7 BCD, etc) it will boot.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391 should be a good starting place for configuring the BCD data with bootrec.
 
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