[SOLVED] Can't boot from Windows SSD after removing different SSD

[mayhew3]

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ULTRA
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K
OS: Win 10 64
Video: ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Turbo Graphic Card TURBO-GTX1080-8G
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO SSD 2TB - M.2 NVMe (x2)

Having a bit of a head-scratcher here... I have two M.2 NMVe 2TB hard drives in my Gigabyte motherboard, in the M2P and M2A slots, and no SATA drives connected. Recently the drive with Windows 10 failed, and I found it had bad sectors. I re-installed Windows on the other drive, and everything works fine, and I was able to retrieve the most critical files from the failed drive. However, I need to send the bad drive to Samsung to have it replaced, and when I remove the drive from the PC, and start the computer, no boot drive is detected. When I open up the boot manager, it shows an empty line and my drive. Selecting either just brings me back to the same screen. If the other drive is connected, I see both drives and Windows Boot Manager. I don't understand why the drive is detected when my inactive drive is connected, but not after I remove it.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[CountMike]

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ULTRA
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K
OS: Win 10 64
Video: ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Turbo Graphic Card TURBO-GTX1080-8G
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO SSD 2TB - M.2 NVMe (x2)

Having a bit of a head-scratcher here... I have two M.2 NMVe 2TB hard drives in my Gigabyte motherboard, in the M2P and M2A slots, and no SATA drives connected. Recently the drive with Windows 10 failed, and I found it had bad sectors. I re-installed Windows on the other drive, and everything works fine, and I was able to retrieve the most critical files from the failed drive. However, I need to send the bad drive to Samsung to have it replaced, and when I remove the drive from the PC, and start the computer, no boot drive is detected. When I open up the boot manager, it shows an empty line and my drive. Selecting either just brings me back to the same screen. If the other drive is connected, I see both drives and Windows Boot Manager. I don't understand why the drive is detected when my inactive drive is connected, but not after I remove it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Let me guess, you didn't disconnect or turned off faulty drive while installing windows to other one ? Now you probably have boot on one drive and windows (C on another. Can you show a picture of your Disk management ?

 

[Nemesia]

When you reinstalled Windows the failing drive was still connected. The OS was installed on the drive you selected but Windows is free to choose on which drive he puts some system files. If Windows installed system files on your failing drives and you removed it this is why there is no OS anymore.

 

[popatim]

Boot from your Windows installation media and run Startup repair a bunch of times until it's fixed.

 

[Gerald6049]

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 AORUS ULTRA
CPU: Intel Core i7-9700K
OS: Win 10 64
Video: ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Turbo Graphic Card TURBO-GTX1080-8G
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO SSD 2TB - M.2 NVMe (x2)

Having a bit of a head-scratcher here... I have two M.2 NMVe 2TB hard drives in my Gigabyte motherboard, in the M2P and M2A slots, and no SATA drives connected. Recently the drive with Windows 10 failed, and I found it had bad sectors. I re-installed Windows on the other drive, and everything works fine, and I was able to retrieve the most critical files from the failed drive. However, I need to send the bad drive to Samsung to have it replaced, and when I remove the drive from the PC, and start the computer, no boot drive is detected. When I open up the boot manager, it shows an empty line and my drive. Selecting either just brings me back to the same screen. If the other drive is connected, I see both drives and Windows Boot Manager. I don't understand why the drive is detected when my inactive drive is connected, but not after I remove it.

Any help would be appreciated.

You don't remove the other drive when you are installing windows. Seems the boot manager is instaleed on the removed drive. You can't boot into windows without the boot manager.

 

[mayhew3]

Ugh. Had no idea keeping it attached during installation would cause an issue. I'll try running Startup repair as popatim suggested, but if that doesn't work, are there any other ways to hack around this? Just spent a week getting all my programs installed and back to normal, not looking forward to starting all over again.

 

[USAFRet]

If the Startup Repair fails, there are methods to create a boot partition on the desired drive.
Calling in @SkyNetRising for the fix.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I'll try running Startup repair as popatim suggested

That is not going to work.
Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

 

[mayhew3]

Thanks everyone for your help. As people have alluded to, installing Windows 10 with an existing Windows drive attached modified the boot partition on my old drive instead of creating a boot partition on my new drive. I was able to find instructions online on creating a new boot partition, after using EaseUS Partition Manager to shrink my existing windows partition. This seems to have solved my problem.

 

[Gerald6049]

Thanks everyone for your help. As people have alluded to, installing Windows 10 with an existing Windows drive attached modified the boot partition on my old drive instead of creating a boot partition on my new drive. I was able to find instructions online on creating a new boot partition, after using EaseUS Partition Manager to shrink my existing windows partition. This seems to have solved my problem.

Nice info, that way is more simple,