Windows 8.1 - Changing Hard Drive Causing Boot Error?

[spacejamz]

Just got a new laptop...I ordered it with 240GB SSD (was only $10 more) that I was going to replace with a 240GB msata drive along with a 1TB 7200rpm drive from my previous laptop...

I installed the msata drive and did a fresh 8.1 install...everytime I do a cold boot, I get a 'Windows failed to start error..." but if hit the power button to turn it off and then immediately press it again, it will then boot into windows...Every time I do a warm boot, the laptop boots up fine with no issues...

When I put the original SSD that came with laptop in, it boots fine (cold and warm boot)...

I just pulled the msata drive from a my previous laptop so I am pretty sure it is fine (it is about 4 months old)...

I have never had any issues with installing a brand new hard drive with a fresh OS Windows (XP, Vista and 7) install before....Is there something new with Win 8.1 that is causing this? Secure Boot maybe? Do I need to de-activate the license on the original SSD before re-activating on the msata drive?

Any help/feedback is appreciated...thanks...

 

[Mushkins]

When you did that fresh 8.1 install, was the 1TB HDD also in the laptop?

Also i'd update BIOS, there might be a known issue booting from an msata with that BIOS version.

 

[spacejamz]

If it matters, when I did the fresh install on the msata drive, I selected the Advanced option to delete all of the partitions on the msata drive, then created a new partition (created 4 of them) during the installation process...

 

[spacejamz]

When you did that fresh 8.1 install, was the 1TB HDD also in the laptop?

Also i'd update BIOS, there might be a known issue booting from an msata with that BIOS version.

The 1TB was not connected and I did update the bios after the fresh install...

 

[spacejamz]

One other thing I did was to replace the existing stick of 8GB of CAS11 memory with two 8GB CAS9 sticks (that I also pulled from my previous laptop)...

I wouldn't think that would be enough of a configuration change to trigger anything but just wanted to mention it....