[SOLVED] Boot Manager is in another drive

[Daniel Youssef]

So I recently got a new cpu and Mb (b550-f asus rog strix) and after installing a new OS on my NVME m.2, I was booting regularly however I noticed later in the bios from the boot order, it is only giving me 1 choice which is my Sata SSD with boot manager option on it, it won't recognize my M.2 as a boot option, still my OS is on my NVME and everything is working normally. Now after some research I enabled CSM to UEFI and legacy mode from bios then I was able to see my M.2 in the boot options however if I select the NVME as the number one option in boot it will give me an error after starting up my pc (some blue screen but not BSOD, which says an error in starting up press F8 to enter install ...etc), the only way I'm able to boot is through boot manager which is on a SATA SSD other than my OS which is on NVME, any help how to fix this?

 

[geofelt]

What happened is that your old drive was present when you installed windows on the m.2.
Had the second drive not been present, it all would have installed on the m.2.

If re installation is not a problem, do it again and have the old drive disconnected.

There is a procedure to resolve this, but I am not familiar with it.
Google is your friend there.

 

[SkyNetRising]

the only way I'm able to boot is through boot manager which is on a SATA SSD other than my OS which is on NVME, any help how to fix this?

You have to create bootloader on NVME drive.
If you want assistance with this, then show screenshot from Disk Management first.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[Daniel Youssef]

What happened is that your old drive was present when you installed windows on the m.2.
Had the second drive not been present, it all would have installed on the m.2.

If re installation is not a problem, do it again and have the old drive disconnected.

There is a procedure to resolve this, but I am not familiar with it.
Google is your friend there.

So I upgraded windows from 10 to 11 via upgrade and kept my files, later I have got new mb and cpu and was forced to install new OS which I have done but also chose to keep my files so it moved all my files to (windows.old) folder and installed completely new OS, all of this occurred on the same partition drive which is the NVME, I don't see how it could be recognized on another drive?

You have to create bootloader on NVME drive.
If you want assistance with this, then show screenshot from Disk Management first.
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

I want to, yes please! not sure how to remove the old one and have it on the NVME though, here's the picture you requested

 

[hotaru.hino]

It references Windows 7, but it works regardless: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/p...ndows-7/ee829683(v=ws.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

That's for creating a bootloader partition and making an entry. You may have to resize the Windows partition of the target drive first.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I want to, yes please! not sure how to remove the old one and have it on the NVME though, here's the picture you requested

Ok. Here are steps to move bootloader to 476GB drive.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately and show screenshot with command output.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 3​

(select 476GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 3​

(select 569MB partition)​

delete partition override​

create partition efi​

format fs=fat32 quick​

assign letter=M​

exit​

bcdboot C:\windows /s M:​

Last message should be "Boot files created successfully".
After that is done,

shutdown pc,​

physically disconnect 240GB drive,​

change boot priority in BIOS, so first boot device is Windows Boot Manager on 500GB drive.​

Verify, you can boot into windows.
After that you can reconnect 240GB drive (shutdown first, of course).

How to open elevated command prompt in Windows 10

Describes how to open an elevated command prompt (cmd.exe) as Administrator in Windows 10.

winaero.com

 

[Daniel Youssef]

Ok. Here are steps to move bootloader to 476GB drive.
Execute from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately and show screenshot with command output.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 3​

(select 476GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 3​

(select 569MB partition)​

delete partition override​

create partition efi​

format fs=fat32 quick​

assign letter=M​

exit​

bcdboot C:\windows /s M:​

Last message should be "Boot files created successfully".
After that is done,

shutdown pc,​

physically disconnect 240GB drive,​

change boot priority in BIOS, so first boot device is Windows Boot Manager on 500GB drive.​

Verify, you can boot into windows.
After that you can reconnect 240GB drive (shutdown first, of course).

How to open elevated command prompt in Windows 10

Describes how to open an elevated command prompt (cmd.exe) as Administrator in Windows 10.

winaero.com

This has worked flawlessly, thank you so much, so now I have boot manager on my m.2 and in my boot order #2 the Sata SSD drive still have a boot manager as well, should I delete it ? how can I?

note: I've disabled CSM again since it was giving me the M.2 as an extra option (M.2 without boot manager option)

 

[SkyNetRising]

Sata SSD drive still have a boot manager as well, should I delete it ? how can I?

Yes, you can delete old EFI system partition.
It is not necessary anymore.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 223GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 1​

(select 100MB EFI System partition)​

delete partition override​

exit​

 

[Daniel Youssef]

Yes, you can delete old EFI system partition.
It is not necessary anymore.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 223GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 1​

(select 100MB EFI System partition)​

delete partition override​

exit​

I've encountered an error doing the delete part

 

[SkyNetRising]

Probably disk being dynamic causes problems here.
Copy all data manually from G: to D :
This is assuming, you need data from G: . If you don't need it, then skip copying.
clean disk 1,
convert it to basic,
repartition,reformat it and
copy data back.

Commands to do that (without copy part) :

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 223GB disk)​

clean​

convert basic​

create partition primary​

format fs=ntfs quick​

exit​

 

[Daniel Youssef]

Probably disk being dynamic causes problems here.
Copy all data manually from G: to D :
This is assuming, you need data from G: . If you don't need it, then skip copying.
clean disk 1,
convert it to basic,
repartition,reformat it and
copy data back.

Commands to do that (without copy part) :

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 223GB disk)​

clean​

convert basic​

create partition primary​

format fs=ntfs quick​

exit​

I've run into a problem, after doing clean it went successfully but then doing convert basic got me "this disk is not dynamic" after looking around the partition was not visible, all other partitions but this was visible, so I went to disk management and this is what is happening

NOTE: pressing right click presents me with "Reactivate disk" if I do that, it will give me a warning message that I should do chkdsk command after it becomes available(tried this as well, no problems found) but still stays missing or failed


UPDATE: The only other option which was available, is to delete the volume, I tried doing that and successfully deleted the entire volume (already made a backup as you suggested), renamed the disk and assigned it a letter and now it seems that it's back to being a basic volume, anything else I'd need to do or is that it?

 

[SkyNetRising]

now it seems that it's back to being a basic volume, anything else I'd need to do or is that it?

Looks good.

I'd suggest you to think about getting rid of dynamic disk 2.
That would mean

copying data away from H: and I: to some other drive,​

cleaning, converting to basic,​

repartitioning, reformatting and​

copying data back.​

But this is not urgent.
Do that, when you have time and drive space available for this (involves a lot of data moving around).