[SOLVED] Boot and System on different drives. New M.2 and looking to get it right

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alex71833

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Okay so I have a bit of a convoluted issue here. I used to have a raid 1 configuration but when I upgraded to Win 10 I lost it and something funny happened with my drives.

I have 4 HDD's (was operting, music, raid 1 for important files) and just purchased one of those WED black M.2 500 gb drives and I am looking to move the essential items over to it. Currently my system and my boot are on different drives. When I copied over the system it said the drive wasn't bootable and when I formatted and carried over the boot drive it had no system. I don't have the Win 10 CD as I upgraded for free from 7.

How do I get both the system adn the boot over to the new drive? I've been working on this for 3 weekends in a row now and I can't seem to figure it out. :'(

Computer Management Drive Mapping:
https://imgur.com/zYJKZiC
View: https://imgur.com/zYJKZiC
 
Solution
USAFRet
Start over with this system.

  1. Back up ALL the data you wish to keep. Preferably on an external drive.
  2. Create a Win 10 USB. Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
  3. Disconnect ALL drives except for whichever one you want the OS on.
  4. Install the OS, wiping that drive in the process:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com

  1. Reconnect the other drives one by one, deleting all data on them.
  2. Copy your stuff back from what you did in Step 1.

Don't bother with a RAID in this. Mismatched drive sizes is just wasting drive space.
1.5TB + 3TB + 1.5TB + RAID 5 = 3TB of usable space.

And that RAID provides no real data security.
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Multiple issues here:

  1. "raid 1 for important files " is false security. It only helps in the case of a physical drive fail. It does nothing for any other form of data loss.
  2. The OS seems to be on Disk 3, which is part of the RAID 1?
  3. "When I copied over the system " How, exactly, did you do this?
 
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alex71833

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  1. Raid 1 was exactly for that, physical drive failure.
  2. RAID 1 is just the name now. H was supposed to be windows, D is music, F & C were supposed to be the raid drives.
  3. The first time I used Acronis but then later I used Computer Management to clone the drives. I tried cloning H but it wouldn't load so I formatted it and cloned C. That didn't work either. Not sure what to do now.
I tried to move the boot over but the below didn't work.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17763.503]
(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\X>bcdboot C:\Windows /s E:
Failure when attempting to copy boot files.

C:\Users\X>
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Cloning does not work like that.
There are tools and methods, but you have to do it correctly.


What is going on between Disk 2 (F) and Disk 3 (C)?
They appear to be identical.
Are they still part of the RAID array?

And there are much better ways to protect your data besides a RAID 1. We can go into that later, if you wish.
 
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alex71833

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F and C have relatively the same data. Once I get past this I will either put them into a software raid 1 configuration or switch over to a hardware raid 5 or 6 enclosure and use these for that. I know it drops you to the lowest capacity drive but as I already have them and don't want to throw them away I am thinking about using the 1.5's and the 3 to set this up. I will need to borrow some friends drives in the meantime to back stuff up before I can set this up though of course.

The 1 tb and 1.5 tb's are all WD black drives from 2011. The 2 tb is a WD green or blue drive some the same period. The data on C is more up to date but I can simply move what I need over to F.

How shall I proceed? Thanks!
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Start over with this system.

  1. Back up ALL the data you wish to keep. Preferably on an external drive.
  2. Create a Win 10 USB. Here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
  3. Disconnect ALL drives except for whichever one you want the OS on.
  4. Install the OS, wiping that drive in the process:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com

  1. Reconnect the other drives one by one, deleting all data on them.
  2. Copy your stuff back from what you did in Step 1.

Don't bother with a RAID in this. Mismatched drive sizes is just wasting drive space.
1.5TB + 3TB + 1.5TB + RAID 5 = 3TB of usable space.

And that RAID provides no real data security.
A good backup routine does provide that security.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
 
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Solution
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alex71833

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^trying this now. Thanks! :)

I am really looking just not to lose content but I have over 3.5 tb of data. of it 1 tb is absolutely critical I don't want to lose.

I don't want to pay monthly for cloud storage. I like your idea of 4x4tb raid 5.
 
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alex71833

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Of course I had issues lol.

1: it couldn't format the selected partition (m.2) error: 0x8004242d
2: Windows can't be installed on drive 0 partition 1 (show details) ...The selected disk has an MBR partition table. Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.

I am going to try Acronis top wipe it and try again. Wish me luck :)
 
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IAmBueno

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alex71833 said:
Of course I had issues lol.

1: it couldn't format the selected partition (m.2) error: 0x8004242d
2: Windows can't be installed on drive 0 partition 1 (show details) ...The selected disk has an MBR partition table. Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.

I am going to try Acronis top wipe it and try again. Wish me luck :)
Click to expand...
You should make sure that the partition tables are the same on the source and destination drives before cloning.

In regards to the Windows install, it sounds like you are using GPT/UEFI boot, so make sure the disk is set to GPT before installing windows. You can do this using CMD prompt during setup.
 
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alex71833

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Okay windows is now on the m.2 drive :)

...but I'm still having boot issues.

My computer is loading to a page titled "American Megatrends" and showing me a "CPU Fan Error" Press F1 to Run SETUP"

Although the new drive is laid out first int eh boot drive lineup it won't auto boot. When I clicked on it to boot manually it gave me this "MBR Error 1" "Press any key to boot from floppy..."
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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alex71833 said:
Okay windows is now on the m.2 drive :)

...but I'm still having boot issues.

My computer is loading to a page titled "American Megatrends" and showing me a "CPU Fan Error" Press F1 to Run SETUP"

Although the new drive is laid out first int eh boot drive lineup it won't auto boot. When I clicked on it to boot manually it gave me this "MBR Error 1" "Press any key to boot from floppy..."
Click to expand...
The fan for your CPU cooler is disconnected.
The system won't start without it.
 
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I

IAmBueno

Jun 2, 2019
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alex71833 said:
Okay windows is now on the m.2 drive :)

...but I'm still having boot issues.

My computer is loading to a page titled "American Megatrends" and showing me a "CPU Fan Error" Press F1 to Run SETUP"

Although the new drive is laid out first int eh boot drive lineup it won't auto boot. When I clicked on it to boot manually it gave me this "MBR Error 1" "Press any key to boot from floppy..."
Click to expand...

Try running "fixmbr" in cmd prompt. You can access cmd prompt using the install media.
 
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alex71833

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the fan is running perfectly fine on my CPU. There are two fan power slots on my motherboard. I switched to the other slot. The fan still works fine yet the issue is still there.
 
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I

IAmBueno

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Bootrec.exe /fixmbr

For the fan error, you probably need to look in the bios and change some settings. You can enable/disable fan failure warning messages per connector. You probably have this enabled for one connector and not the other, hence why you encountered the error when changing connectors.
 
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