Why won't my Windows 7 (SSD) start if I change the drive configuration?

[sygyzy]

Hi,

I have a bit of a complicated question I am hoping the geniuses here can help with. It's actually two questions. Here is my current setup:

SATA 0 - Intel 40GB SSD SATA
SATA 1 - 1TB SATA
SATA 2 - 500GB SATA
IDE 0 - 300GB PATA

I have been dealing with a failed system drive from my Windows Home Server (WHS) so I wanted to clone it. I bought a new 1TB Seagate for this purpose. Let's called it DD (destination drive).

First I plugged the WHS drive into an external USB dock and made an image to SATA1. No issues. When the DD arrived, i was worried that an image/restore wouldn't be "bit-perfect" unless I was plugged in internally. I know this is silly but I wanted to be sure. So I did this setup:

SATA 0 - Intel 40GB SSD SATA
SATA 1 - Destination Drive
SATA 2 - WHS system drive
IDE 0 - unplugged

When I started up, my bios/boot detected all drives correctly. When it came time to start Win 7, the screen flashed and lost signal. Then restarted. This went on repeatedly until I stopped it.

I tried a different config.

SATA 0 - Intel 40GB SSD SATA
SATA 1 - Destination Drive
SATA 2 - unplugged
IDE 0 - unplugged

My idea was to clone the WHS using the USB dock straight to the DD which was plugged internally.

This also did not work. At some point, I forgot which configuration, I actually saw a Windows Home Server startup screen (while it's still in DOS, not the Windows GUI). This suggests to me that having two bootable disks installed causes a conflict. How does the system know which to use? Is this a no no? I have done it in the past and it worked fine. I gave BIOS the boot priority of having the Intel SSD (Win 7) boot first but having that WHS drive still caused issues.

My second situation - Feeling a bit confused and annoyed, I unplugged all drives so I only had the SSD plugged in. No WHS or DD drives anywhere. When I tried booting up, it said there's no boot disk! I tried searching my floppy drive and CD-ROM drive for a boot device. I then tried:

SATA 0 - Intel 40GB SSD SATA
SATA 1 - 1TB SATA
SATA 2 - unplugged
IDE 0 - unplugged

That also didn't work. I then plugged them all back in and it worked. What gives? There's nothing on my Windows 7 install that makes it unique except that I moved the My Documents folder to the D: (SATA1) drive. Nothing else is unique about it. Does Win 7 somehow leave data on other drives?

This really worries me. How am I supposed to ever remove a drive now?

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bankster55]

guess my posts are too long for AT
oh well

 

[corkyg]

Any time imaging or hard cloning - never utilize an external enclosure. That just adds another layer of possible failure.
If you add or subtract HDD you may ruin the boot order in bios to reflect a drive with no O/S, depending on SATA ports utilized

It works perfectly in some scenarios. I do it every week. I clone my laptop HDD to an external eSATA drive - same size, using TI2010 on a bootable thumb drive. Then I change internal HDDs and clone from the external HDD to the internal HDD. Disconnect external, reboot and the new drive is a perfect duplicate. I then have a ready to use duplicate HDD in its own caddy and a good backup clone job on the external HDD. In this proven scenario, there is never a change in boot order.

 

[sygyzy]

Hi,

I was not intending to "play musical chairs" with my drives. I was just wondering why the system couldn't boot with certain drives installed and similarly, with drives removed. I've attached my currently (working, original) setup below. The WHS and DD drives are not in the picture because I was able to clone them just fine using the USB dock. Remember, this exercise was only because I was trying to image my WHS drive. I wasn't trying to just randomly stick drives into the mix.

In the photo below you can see:

C: SATA 0 - Intel 40GB SSD SATA
D: SATA 1 - 1TB SATA
E: SATA 2 - 500GB SATA
G: IDE 0 - 300GB PATA

The only thing that looks "off" is E: drive lists "System" as part of it's status. Does that mean if it's removed, C: can't boot? How do I make C: a system drive? I don't know what all of these things mean - System, Primary, Boot, Crash Dump, etc.

Edit - I don't know how or why my E: is lisetd as System and Active. I just made C: Active. How do I remove the "System" from E: and place it on C: (boot drive)?

 

[postmortemIA]

I am not even going to read that novel up there.

System -where boot loader is
Primary - primary partition (type of partition, can be primary and logical, but it does not matter much for you)
Boot - where windows installation files are,
Active - used more in old dos days to boot to particular partition
Crash Dump - where RAM dump goes where you get bsod

so basic rule of thumb is that you have to have boot loader installed on partition that you want to boot from. boot loader is installed when you install windows, and windows will always install boot loader on first partition of the first disk.

 

[sygyzy]

Thanks postmoretemIA. So is it strange that my E: drive is considered a system drive? How do I remove that from E: and make my C: a System drive?

 

[postmortemIA]

EDIT: looks like i was wrong: system is where boot loader is, and boot partition is where windows installation files are. either way, to boot you need that system partition, or you can manually install bootloader on C: which is harder. it is not problem thought, whoever has dual boot has different system and boot partition. bankster55 said it all right.

 

[sygyzy]

How did this happen to begin with? I did a fresh install of Windows 7 (no cloning here) when I got my SSD. I chose C: as the install disk. I probably had the other drives in the chassis hooked up when I installed Windows but regardless, why would Win 7 randomly choose E: as a SYSTEM (boot loader) location? I certainly never told it to do that.

Also, I have never ever dual booted or setup dual booting. So what gives?

 

[RebateMonger]

System -where boot loader is <====

Boot - where windows installation files are <====

For the life of me, I'll never understand how Microsoft decided on that "reverse-logic" naming convention for "Boot" And "System" disks.

 

[sygyzy]

I understand the difference, but I am asking how or why the bootloader was installed to E: and not to my primary boot drive, C:?

 

[postmortemIA]

because disk ordering in BIOS and they way windows 7 names disks:
- E: is you real first drive (should have been C: ) and there it put boot loader
- C: is given by Windows 7 installer so it looks nice, but really is not first partition of first drive.
In other words, installer will name C: wherever it install Windows, and boot loader goes to actual first drive, on the is connected to SATA0 port.

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

I see postIA messing up again! hahaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Did you even go into BIOS to change the boot drive or other boot orders? And, did you ever have the SSD drive working properly in the system? I'll assume yes to the last question.

You should have shut down, connect both drives, hit power, entered BIOS, make sure it doesn't try to boot the other OS drive (WHS), and made sure all ports with HDD you want connected are active and set properly. Then you would have been able to boot into Win7 and go into Disk Management to format the new 1TB, and clone. Or, I would have burnt clonezilla onto a CD and cloned the WHS drive from linux disc without Win7.