Boot Issue With Multiple Hard Drives

[Lowlands Gamer]

My old PC had three separate hard drives (3x WD Blue 1 TB, Windows 8.1 on all three), which I swapped depending on which one I needed (Work, Games, Test). I've now set up a new PC with an MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard and built the drives in. The motherboard's boot menu sees all three, but after selecting the desired drive, it doesn't boot properly.
When I want to boot from drive #1, it boots from drive #2. When I want to boot from drive #2, it actually does boot from drive #2. When I want to boot from drive #3, it boots from drive #1.
Anyone know the cause of, and the solution to, this?

TIA

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CoolerMaster HAF X | Corsair RM750 | MSI Z97M Gaming | Intel Core i5 4690K 3.5 GHz | ASUS HD7850-DC2-2GD5-V2 | 16 GB DDR3 | 3x WD Blue 1 TB

 

[senseijtitus]

have you done a fresh windows installation after changing the Hard Disks to the new PC?

 

[USAFRet]

1. I'm surprised they all actually (sort of) boot properly.

2. You probably just have the SATA data cables plugged into the wrong or different ports than you had previously.

But overall, I can't think of a more confusing setup than 3 instances of the same OS on 3 different drives in 1 PC.

For Test, and possibly Work instances, consider Virtual Machines. VirtualBox does this easily.

 

[Lowlands Gamer]

I haven't done fresh installs. The whole idea was that if I could just build all three drives in and boot them via the BIOS boot menu, I wouldn't have to spend an entire week reinstalling everything! Had to do that a few months ago, when both the initial Work and Games drives died after years of loyal service. Installing Windows (plus the automatic updates) and then installing 600 GB worth of games through Steam takes about three days. :-(

I don't see how different ports could be the cause, USAFret. If I can boot from a drive on SATA1, and boot from a drive on SATA2, I should be able to also boot from SATA3 (as well as ports 4, 5, and 6).

 

[senseijtitus]

So basically the only drive not accessible right now is the #3 drive. Right?

 

[USAFRet]

Well, somehow, it seems your motherboard is mislabeling them. Possibly swap the SATA data cables around.

 

[senseijtitus]

If you have issue with booting into OS in the 3rd Drive, let us know.

 

[USAFRet]

What happens if you have each drive connected on its own, without the other two? Does each boot properly?

 

[Lowlands Gamer]

It looks like the cause (and part of the solution) of the issue has been found. Cause #1 is human error: wat I thought was drive #3 was actually drive #1, and vice versa. Drive #1 (Work) is now properly attached to SATA1, drive #2 (Games) to SATA2, and drive #3 (Test) to SATA3. Booting from Work and Games works fine, booting from Test doesn't (although it's visible in Windows Explorer when booting from the other drives).

I unplugged all three drives, then hooked up just one to see what would happen (repeated for each drive). I have no idea how or why it happened, but drive Test has suddenly decided to no longer be a bootable drive. With only that drive attached, it simply won't boot. With all drives attached and trying to boot from Test, the PC 'solves' the boot error by booting from Work.

So, at best I'll get everything in working order by doing a Windows Repair on drive Test, otherwise a clean install of just that drive (fortunately not much on that one) should do the trick.

 

[senseijtitus]

Or you can add the the windows installed in that drive to the MBR.

You can use software like BCDEdit.

try this link.

http://superuser.com/questions/511582/how-to-use-bcdedit-to-dual-boot-windows-installations

Or this one.

https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/tips-and-tricks/recovering-windows-bootloader/