Question Adding a second Windows 11 boot drive. Please help.

[sacentre]

I really need some help here. I've been driving myself nuts over this for days and I hope the gurus out there can suggest what I'm doing wrong. I'll try to be as clear and concise as possible.

What I'm trying to do.
I'm running windows 11 Pro, 24H2 on an internal M.2 SSD on my desktop PC and this is working fine. What I want to do is add a second, bootable, 2.5 inch SATA drive with Windows 11 Pro, 22H2 installed on it to give me a dual-boot system. The drive is cabled to a small, 4-port SATA extension card plugged into a spare PCIe slot and the manufacture's dedicated driver installed. Now, I did this successfully a few weeks ago and everything worked perfectly. I got the blue Windows boot menu at boot up allowing me to select which drive I wanted to boot from (I know how to turn this on and off if need be by accessing the Advanced System Settings) and it all seemed so simple.

So what's my problem?
Something went wrong (I never found out what) so I took the new drive out again, restored my primary SSD from a backup and everything was back to normal. I now want to try the same thing again but simply can't get it to work. Obviously, I've done something wrong or missed a step but can't, despite hours of wasted effort, find out what.

I tried leaving out the SATA extension card and cabling the drive to a SATA port on the motherboard but this made no difference.

The routine I've been following is as follows:-

1. access the newly installed drive with a partition manager, delete and re-create a new, simple volume in unallocated space and format it. The drive can then be seen in Windows explorer.

2. boot the PC using a bootable thumb drive created with Rufus and the Windows 11, 22H2 ISO and follow the normal Windows installation process making sure to select the newly created partition using the Custom installation option.

Everything goes smoothly until the time the installation needs to reboot the PC. Then all I get is the blue Recovery option screen and nothing works from there. I can no longer boot from the first drive even if I select the original Windows Boot Manager from the BIOS. If I reboot and select the thumb drive from the boot BIOS boot options, it just restarts the installation process from the beginning. So what I hope to learn is why after the first reboot during installation, it's not picking up where it left off and continue installing.

Sorry for the long winded story. I hope it's clear enough for someone to see what it is I'm doing wrong or what step I'm missing. I can't figure out why it worked so smoothly the first time.

TIA

 

[SkyNetRising]

Something went wrong (I never found out what) so I took the new drive out again, restored my primary SSD from a backup and everything was back to normal.

What were the symptoms, when "something went wrong"?

2. boot the PC using a bootable thumb drive created with Rufus and the Windows 11, 22H2 ISO and follow the normal Windows installation process
Everything goes smoothly until the time the installation needs to reboot the PC.
Then all I get is the blue Recovery option screen and nothing works from there.
I can no longer boot from the first drive even if I select the original Windows Boot Manager from the BIOS.

Disable fast boot and
disable secure boot in BIOS.

Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

It's possible, bootloader partition on primary OS drive is too small. You may need to make it bigger.

 

[sacentre]

Thanks for the reply.
1. I'm afraid I can't recall what happened. It may have been some completely unrelated PC problem.

2. Fast boot was already disabled. Secure boot was Enabled but this didn't seem to cause any problem the first time. I've Disabled it now.

3. Disk Management screenshot is here:-

https://imgur.com/a/763MPkE

View: https://imgur.com/a/763MPkE

C: has 336xxx GB of free space
E: is the drive I'm trying to install Windows on
D:, L: and M: are just my storage drives.

Thanks

 

[SkyNetRising]

EFI bootloader partition is only 100MB.
Recommended size is 350M to 500MB.

Boot from Windows installation media into command prompt.
Press Shift+F10 to open command prompt, when booted from windows installation media.
Execute following to recreate EFI bootloader.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately and show screenshot.
Note: After deleting old bootloader your pc is not bootable anymore until new bootloader is successfully created.
Do not reboot, if there are any errors.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk x​

(select 465GB disk, replace x with appropriate number. Disk numbers in windows installation environment will be different.)​

list partition​

select partition y​

(select 100MB EFI System partition, Replace y with appropriate number. y=1 or y=2)​

delete partition override​

list partition​

select partition z​

(select 465GB partition. Replace z with appropriate number)​

shrink desired=500​

create partition efi size=500​

format fs=fat32 quick​

assign letter=K​

list volume​

(Find volume letter for 465GB OS partition. It may not be C: . Replace C: with appropriate letter. )​

exit​

bcdboot C:\windows /s K: /f UEFI​

Last message should be "Boot files created successfully".

If everything went well, then reboot into windows and show full screenshot from Disk Management (do not crop the image).

 

[sacentre]

Thank you so much for this detailed set of instructions. It's most appreciated. You clearly took a lot of time and effort over it but It's going to take me a while to figure it all out as it's all a bit above my pay grade I'm afraid. Can the bootloader partition be adjusted using a partition manager?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Can the bootloader partition be adjusted using a partition manager?

That would make things even more complicated.
Possible data loss during move of OS partition. And bootloader would need to be recreated anyway.
Would recommend against that.

You could redo cloning and adjust bootloader partition size during the process.
That might be a simpler way.

 

[sacentre]

Many thanks once again. I'm all for doing things the simpler way. By "cloning" do you mean the cloning function of apps like AOMEI Backupper which is the one use? I've used the actual cloning function very rarely. Mostly I just use the Backup/Restore. I wasn't aware the partition resizing can be done during a Restore if that's what you mean. I'll check that out. I'm afraid I'm a novice here.

 

[SkyNetRising]

By "cloning" do you mean the cloning function of apps like AOMEI Backupper which is the one use?
Mostly I just use the Backup/Restore. I wasn't aware the partition resizing can be done during a Restore if that's what you mean.

Cloning and restoring from image are quite similar. (Same process, cloning just skips intermediary image file creation and source/target drives have to be different).
Anyway - I meant "restore from image" instead of "cloning".

I'm not sure if AOMEI Backupper allows partition resizing during restore.
But different cloning softwares do allow that.

 

[sacentre]

Understood. I'll check around and see what I can find. I'm very grateful for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

Understood. I'll check around and see what I can find. I'm very grateful for you help.

Macrium Reflect absolutely allows resizing the target partitions during a clone process.
The middle section here speaks to exactly that.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includes Data Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[dwd999]

The Windows Installer works best when only 1 drive is connected at install time; you can connect additional drives after installation is complete. I've found that the easiest way to have 2 installations is to install the 1st version on the 1st drive, use Macrium to create a backup image and wipe the 1st drive. Then install the 2nd version on the 2nd drive and after that's complete, restore the 1st version to the 1st drive. I prefer using the bios to switch drives and versions rather than getting the Windows booter involved.

 

[sacentre]

Thank you dwd999. I read elsewhere that suggested method and it seemed perfectly doable so I tried it as follows.

1. disconnect 1st 24H2 M.2 SSD
2. connect 2nd SATA 2.5 SSD
3. install Win 22H2 in the normal way on 2nd SSD (PC will now boot from 2nd SSD)
4. reconnect 1st 24H2 M.2 SSD
5. select boot drive from BIOS at boot. I couldn't get it to work.

The only thing I didn't do was "wipe the 1st drive. Then install the 2nd version on the 2nd drive and after that's complete, restore the 1st version to the 1st drive". Would this be why?

I'd assumed it would be ok just to have the 1st drive removed and reinserted after. Why the need to wipe it and then restore afterwards? Everything on the 1st drive would be exactly the same as before, wouldn't it?

 

[dwd999]

Thank you dwd999. I read elsewhere that suggested method and it seemed perfectly doable so I tried it as follows.

1. disconnect 1st 24H2 M.2 SSD
2. connect 2nd SATA 2.5 SSD
3. install Win 22H2 in the normal way on 2nd SSD (PC will now boot from 2nd SSD)
4. reconnect 1st 24H2 M.2 SSD
5. select boot drive from BIOS at boot. I couldn't get it to work.

The only thing I didn't do was "wipe the 1st drive. Then install the 2nd version on the 2nd drive and after that's complete, restore the 1st version to the 1st drive". Would this be why?

I'd assumed it would be ok just to have the 1st drive removed and reinserted after. Why the need to wipe it and then restore afterwards? Everything on the 1st drive would be exactly the same as before, wouldn't it?

Was the 1st drive also the only drive connected when you performed the 1st install with no remnants of the previous failed boot loader? The Windows Installer only requires that a drive have a GPT partition table header to install Windows. If a drive has been wiped in advance and all of its space is unallocated the installation process proceeds faster since the Installer sees that the drive is empty, does its thing in creating all of the partitions and the boot loader, etc.

 

[sacentre]

Yes, the only drive connected at the time. That was several years ago when I first built the PC. I've Backup/Restored many times and always completely delete the partition and restore to unallocated space.

So my question about "wipe the 1st drive. Then install the 2nd version on the 2nd drive and after that's complete, restore the 1st version to the 1st drive" was not doing this what caused the problem?

 

[sacentre]

I just tried this again but it failed.

I wiped the 1st disk but left it installed. Then started a fresh 22H2 installation on the 2nd disk. When it came time to reboot to complete the installation, it just re-booted from the installation media. So it seems that the system won't recognise the 2nd disk as a boot drive or something. This appears to have been the problem all along but I've no idea what's causing it.

As I said in my OP, it worked perfectly the first time - same hardware setup etc. Clearly something it not right with the 2nd drive or the 4-port SATA card it's connected to. I was careful to install the driver for it and it shows up OK in Explorer. But where I go from here, I've no idea.

 

[sacentre]

Macrium Reflect absolutely allows resizing the target partitions during a clone process.
The middle section here speaks to exactly that.

-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includes Data Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

Apologies for a belated thanks for this, USAFRet. As I mention later in my last post below, the problem boils down to not being able to install a fresh copy of Windows on a new SSD (no other drives connected). So whatever is preventing this, is the problem and I have no idea why. I've lost count of the number of times I've done this without any issues over the years.

 

[dwd999]

I just tried this again but it failed.

I wiped the 1st disk but left it installed. Then started a fresh 22H2 installation on the 2nd disk. When it came time to reboot to complete the installation, it just re-booted from the installation media. So it seems that the system won't recognise the 2nd disk as a boot drive or something. This appears to have been the problem all along but I've no idea what's causing it.

As I said in my OP, it worked perfectly the first time - same hardware setup etc. Clearly something it not right with the 2nd drive or the 4-port SATA card it's connected to. I was careful to install the driver for it and it shows up OK in Explorer. But where I go from here, I've no idea.

How about going back to the ssd directly connected to a motherboard sata port with the 4 port sata card removed. If you can get back to the point where you have 2 drives each of which can be booted independently as the only drive connected then you could put the sata card back in and use the bios to choose which drive to boot.

 

[sacentre]

I did try that (mentioned in my OP) but it made no difference. On the chance that it could be something wrong with my installation media, I thought I'd rebuild them. I have 2 identical 32GB thumb drives - 22H2 and 24H2.

I read somewhere that they need to be formatted for FAT32 so I did this and then used Rufus to load version 22H2 which left the format as FAT32.

I then tried Microsoft's Media Creation Tool which by default installs the latest version 24H2 and when I checked Properties, I saw that the formatting had been changed to NTFS. I don't know if any of this matters but I'm clutching at straws at this point. For now, I'll continue to try installing Windows fresh on a clean, single drive just as I would on a new build. Once I can do that, the dual boot thing will take care of itself.

I know I'm going to end up feeling really stupid when I discover that there's some simple step or mistake I've made somewhere. This is by no means unlikely given my 78 years and failing memory🤣

 

[sacentre]

I want to say a huge thank you to all who contributed to this thread with so much patience and detailed explanations. Unfortunately, I have so far failed to find what was causing the problem (failure to boot from the 2nd drive during during the normal Windows installation reboots). Because of this, I don't even have any useful information to pass on that might make your efforts worthwhile.

For those of you who still have the patience to read further, I was able to find a work around: I connected the 2nd drive to a spare PC and launched the installation of 22H2 on that machine just to get it past the initial reboot stages. I was then able to reconnect it to my original PC and complete the installation from there by selecting the 2nd boot drive from the BIOS boot selection menu each time Windows needed to restart. So at least I now have the dual-boot capability that was the original aim much though I would have liked to have ended up learning I could apply in future. As it is, I'm still clueless as to what I did wrong.

Once again, many thanks for all your expertise and patience in helping me with this problem.

 

[droyls]

A late comment on this topic:
Have you considered using a virtual machine for the second copy of Windows 11 22H2 instead of using dual-boot?

If you have a reasonable spec machine then you could have Win 11 22H2 in any of Hyper-V, VMware or VirtualBox according to which works best for you.

I stopped using dual-boot more than 6 years ago in favour initially of using VMware, and later switched to using Hyper-V.

 

[sacentre]

Thank you, droyls. I have no experience or expertise setting up VM although I use a Windows tablet with an Android emulator that uses Virtual Box.

In this case I just wanted to set up a dual boot system using separate drives to see how it works. Sadly, I got myself into a load of trouble somehow. It came right in the end but I didn't really learn much about what I did wrong.

I know I could easily have done much the same thing by creating a separate partition on the existing C: drive but prefer, given the spare SSDs I have, to use separate hardware. I like the way most motherboards have 2 or 3 slots for M.2 these days. My tiny m-ITX has 3.

Thanks again.

 

[droyls]

Perhaps one of the easiest virtual machine apps to use is VMware Workstation Pro which is free for personal use.
See webpage: VMware Workstation Pro: Now Available Free for Personal Use which has details of where to get the installer.
See webpage: How to download and install VMware Workstation Pro for free on Windows 11, 10 (2025) for install information.
Once installed, you can configure VMware to store your virtual machines on one of your spare SSD's to get best performance.
See webpage: How to Install Windows 11 on VMware: A Step-by-Step Guide
Installing a virtual machine is mainly a matter of selecting the install .ISO then answering the prompts for creating a new VM then the normal Win 11 install process. Once installed, you can tweak things like allocated RAM, disk space etc as needed.