Can't boot Windows 8.1

[JonahJay]

Alright so monday (10/20) I received a Corsair Nova (refurbished) 60GB SSD. My plan was to swap out my 160GB Seagate, which had nothing on it at the time, for that SSD. Everything on my computer is stored on a 232GB WD drive, and that was untouched. I swapped out the Seagate drive for the nova, and then attempted to boot my computer. I received an error 0xc00000f, and the screen said that I was missing some boot files. Keep in mind I never touched my primary drive with all my files on it. So now, my computer won't boot after replacing my old hard drive. I also attempted putting the old drive back, and booting with only my main drive, but I still got the error. The SSD is not showing up in my bios also. On top of that, I also attempted resenting my CMOS by removing the mobo battery, but it did nothing.

SPECS;
MSI A55M-P33 motherboard
FM1 A6 3670k CPU
Powercolor Radeon 7850
Some 600W PSU (generic brand)
232GB Western Digital HDD (Primary Drive) This was a laptop drive before I put it in my PC
160 GB Seagate HDD (Secondary Drive)
60GB Corsair Nova SSD (New Secondary Drive)
WINDOWS 8.1
Things to note***
I DO NOT HAVE A DVD/CD DRIVE
I installed windows with a USB Flash drive, which I have misplaced since.
I do not have a repair disk/drive
ANY HELP WILL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!

 

[SchizTech]

Think back: was the HDD you removed present when you first installed Windows (there were two HDD both present)? If so, it's possible the boot files were put there. From Windows 7 and beyond, the bootloader resides in a small "system reserved" partition. Unfortunately, Windows setup doesn't always put that partition on the same drive as Windows is actually installed on when multiple drives are present.

Does the PC boot if you put that original HDD back in?

Also, why swap out a storage HDD for a smaller SSD? The main benefits of an SSD are evident when it's the boot drive.

 

[JonahJay]

No, even when I put back the hard drives how they were, I get no change. And just for the sake of having the SSD. I didn't have anything in the 160GB hard drive to begin with, so storage didn't really concern me. But yes I have tried to boot with both of the original hard drives and I get the same error.

 

[JonahJay]

Also, I think the drive was present, so that may be the case. But shouldn't I be able to boot even though I removed the drive and put it back?

 

[SchizTech]

What are you posting this from? If you have access to another machine running 8.1 (has to be the same bit-ness as your copy, whether 32- or 64-bit) you could use that to create a recovery flash drive.

Otherwise, if you have a copy of the 8.1 product key, you can go here to get a copy of the full installer (which you can boot and select "repair my computer")

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only

 

[JonahJay]

What are you posting this from? If you have access to another machine running 8.1 (has to be the same bit-ness as your copy, whether 32- or 64-bit) you could use that to create a recovery flash drive.

Otherwise, if you have a copy of the 8.1 product key, you can go here to get a copy of the full installer (which you can boot and select "repair my computer")

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/upgrade-product-key-only

Posting from my phone, so no other PC... There's gotta be another way around this

 

[SchizTech]

Is there no way you can get access to another PC? Get some time on a friend's machine just to download a copy from that link and set up another flash drive? It's going to be hard to find a way around this otherwise.

 

[JonahJay]

Is there no way you can get access to another PC? Get some time on a friend's machine just to download a copy from that link and set up another flash drive? It's going to be hard to find a way around this otherwise.

do I have to have the key to repair? I have no idea where it is...it's lost in the inbox of one of my many email addresses.

 

[SchizTech]

You shouldn't need the key to do the repair once you boot from the disk (click "repair my computer" rather than "install" when the disk boots). Running the upgrade adviser with that link can let you download a copy, but you need to enter the key in there to get the download. If you can borrow another PC with an 7 or 8.0 (the same bit-ness as yours, since the upgrade adviser will download a copy that matches the bit-ness of the computer it's run from) you can use that to set up a USB drive.

 

[JonahJay]

You shouldn't need the key to do the repair once you boot from the disk (click "repair my computer" rather than "install" when the disk boots). Running the upgrade adviser with that link can let you download a copy, but you need to enter the key in there to get the download. If you can borrow another PC with an 7 or 8.0 (the same bit-ness as yours, since the upgrade adviser will download a copy that matches the bit-ness of the computer it's run from) you can use that to set up a USB drive.

Wait, I don't have to reinstall windows do I?

 

[SchizTech]

You might not have to, but there is a repair utility built into the installer. If you have access to a machine running 8.1 (of the same bit-ness as yours) you could borrow that to make a repair drive (that would be a quick process, just a couple of minutes). Either source gets you the same repair options. Having a full copy of the installer would provide backup in case the repair isn't successful though.