Question Boot drive switched and I can’t switch back.

[Natek1212]

A few months ago, I got an error while booting my PC that said it couldn’t sign me into my account and that it signed me into a temporary account. I’ve been too busy to mess with it and decided I’d leave it alone for the time being. I think what happened is my SSD (my original boot drive) came lose and got disconnected, and when that happened my PC booted up from my HDD even after I plugged the SSD back in. When I go into my files, the SSD shows up on the bar on the left side. When I try to click on any applications downloaded onto the SSD, it says the file can’t be found or something along those lines...none of the applications on the SSD will run. When I go to msconfig and try to switch my boot drive back to the SSD, the only hard drive shown is the HDD. I’m confused as to how the SSD is being detected but I can’t make it my boot drive and I can’t run any applications downloaded on it. Do I have to transfer over anything I need from the SSD that isn’t an application, then wipe it and redownload windows onto it and make it my boot drive again, then redownload all the lost applications? Or is there a better/easier way to fix it?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

The only way for something like that to happen(where the OS boots off another drive) is that you had a dual boot of the same OS. Speaking of OS, what OS are you working with? Windows 10? If so, which version? If Windows, you shouldn't be on a dual boot with 2 versions of Windows 10, one in itself is more than a handful trying to troubleshoot when troubles come through.

If you want to reinstall the OS, make sure you've backed up all critical content from the SSD, then make sure the OS on the HDD is removed(by using the installer to format the drive the OS is on the HDD) then power down the system, remove the HDD from the system, then power back up and install the OS on the SSD.

You will need Windows Media Creation Tools to fabricate your bootable OS installer.

 

[Natek1212]

It is Windows 10 Home. I went to go do a reinstall onto the SSD and I changed the bios boot order so that it boots from the USB with Windows 10 on it. I shut down my computer after this and boot it back up to install the new Windows 10 and I have a black screen with white text saying “Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key”. I have the correct Windows 10 installation on the USB but my problem is that when I boot my computer up, it automatically goes to this screen, and my PC will not ready anything plugged in through USB. It is not reading the USB drive, my mouse, or my keyboard. I can’t find any way to fix this....I can’t even go into BIOS because my keyboard is not being read, no buttons will work. I’ve tried booting it with the USB plugged in and unplugged, all sorts of things...

 

[Natek1212]

For some reason I unplugged my SSD and plugged it in again and I looked over and my mouse and keyboard were turned back on. Back to step 1!