[SOLVED] How to fix/boot into second HD's Windows 10.

[WeskerEnd]

I have 1 SSD and 1 HDD.

First installed W10 on the SSD, later installed it again on the HDD. At boot, I was able to choose which W10 (SSD or HDD) I wanted to boot into, perfect!

Yesterday I upgraded my SSD to a new one, and well, now it boots straight into W10 from this new install, no option to choose the HDD.

I know this is because the "GRUB" or whatever's responsible for managing the installs was in the old SSD, and now without that there is no information of a second windows 10.

How do I fix this? How do I install that or make this new W10 recognize the second W10 install, without having to format/reinstall the second W10?

Hope that's clear, I don't know how to search for this problem, I tried but kept finding stuff that didn't help me at all, it's been 1 day without being able to use my second W10 install. And if you're curious, I use the second W10 for anything that I don't fully trust, like some mandatory bank plugins, software that I need to try or any other stuff I don't want to risk messing my safe stable trustworthy W10 install.

Thanks in advance!

 

[USAFRet]

Drive #1 - Install.
Drive #2 - Install.
Remove Drive #1, Install.

The boot info for Drive #1 and #2 was held on Drive #1.
Remove Drive #1, install on #3, and it has no boot info for Drive #2.

Question - Why do you want the OS on the two drives?
As usual, this leads to confusion and weirdness later on. As you are seeing now.

 

[WeskerEnd]

...Question - Why do you want the OS on the two drives?
As usual, this leads to confusion and weirdness later on. As you are seeing now.

As I said, anything weird I use the second OS install. One bank that I use has a mandatory browser plugin that really roots into Windows 10, Warsaw, I hate it, so it goes on the second windows since I don't need to us it everyday.

Sometimes I need to try some random software (last ones were some given on a Humble Bundle), same.

 

[USAFRet]

Better ways to do that:

1. Use a VM for the dodgy stuff. That's what I do. Windows or Linux, in a VM. Runs self contained, without affecting the host OS at all.
or
2. Completely independent installs. You have the OS on the new SSD. Disconnect all drives except the other drive (the HDD?) and install on that.
Select which at boot time.
Each drive has its own boot info.

To fix your current borked install on the HDD?
Possibly...
Disconnect all drives except that HDD.
Boot from a Windows install USB.
Run the Repair function.
That may fix that drive.
If it does, that will result in the #2 above, 2 independent drives.

 

[WeskerEnd]

Better ways to do that:

1. Use a VM for the dodgy stuff. That's what I do. Windows or Linux, in a VM. Runs self contained, without affecting the host OS at all.
or
2. Completely independent installs. You have the OS on the new SSD. Disconnect all drives except the other drive (the HDD?) and install on that.
Select which at boot time.
Each drive has its own boot info.

To fix your current borked install on the HDD?
Possibly...
Disconnect all drives except that HDD.
Boot from a Windows install USB.
Run the Repair function.
That may fix that drive.
If it does, that will result in the #2 above, 2 independent drives.

VM's to me always presented some kind of trouble, I got tired of having to recreate or fix stuff. And right now I'm playing an online game that does not allow me to run it inside a VM, so that's not something that works for me right now.

If nothing else comes up I'll try that repair, if you don't mind I'll keep searching and maybe wait for someone who had the same problem. Sucks not having something easy to search for, like an error code.

 

[WeskerEnd]

Well, problem fixed, it was really really simple, just didn't know how to search about it for a while.

If anyone finds this and has a similar problem:

1 - Boot into Command Prompt from a recovery disk/USB. (If you have a working Windows install, you can do this from inside windows, probably).
2 - Know what letter the drive uses, in my case it was the D drive.
3 - use/type the command:

bcdboot X:\windows

Where 'X' is the drive letter.

Easy as 1-2-3, everything working perfectly, no need to change boot order everytime (if using 2 independent installs) or remove connections between installs, and if I need to change drives again this can be done in 1 minute or less, this is not an issue at all.

Thanks!