Question Migrated SSD not working, Laptop booting from EFI partition

[drumdr0id]

The internal hard drive on my Omen laptop is starting to fail. I have it partitioned; C is Windows, D is data. (The D drive is failing, eveything is backed up). It has been running off of a USB adapter because the internal sata connector is broken. I used DiskGenius to migrate the OS from the C drive to a new SSD that is compatible for this laptop, but it is ALSO connected via USB. I also partitioned this new SSD in the same manner- one partition for Windows, the other for data.

The laptop is still booting from the EFI System Partition. It does this even when the old hard drive is not connected. In windows, the new SSD drive is visible and accessible, but I can't getthe laptop to boot off of the new drive.
In BIOS, there are no options to change the boot order. It just confirms that I have accessed the boot manager.
I tried to delete the EFI partition via CMD prompt from a post I saw on Tom's Hardware, and now the drive desinations are wonky, however, the EFI drive is still there, and the laptop is still booting from it.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J-__78qv6nkMPVa0OZaKS6AW7hBkS7qu/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VZP_OoyxQLBp8FLEA7a8FMoRDI-xMVNI/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f_RymXk4SRn14FUvawgZxQQ8TFMKy445/view?usp=sharing

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Looking at your screenshot for Disk Manager, it seems you had two physical drives. If the laptop that I work on, has the option to have 2 physical storage drives, I tend to have one for the OS, which is usually on a smaller capacity SSD while the other drive is usually a mechanical drive that is meant for storage and is just one large partition.

my Omen laptop
What is the model/SKU for your Omen laptop?

I would leave the Samsung SSD drive;
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/samsung-pm961-256-gb.d1201
as is and then replace the failing drive with another 2.5" drive sans any migrations, then in Disk Manager create the new drive as one single partition.

 

[Misgar]

I used DiskGenius to migrate the OS from the C drive to a new SSD

When you cloned the old drive to the new drive, did you physically disconnect the old drive from the computer before attempting to boot up from the new drive for the first time?

If you don't unplug the old drive immediately after cloning, Windows sometimes continues using the UEFI boot partition on the old drive to start the OS on the C: partition in the new drive. The result is you cannot boot into Windows on the new drive with the old drive disconnected.

Your second screen grab shows two EFI boot partitions, one on Drive 0, the second on Drive 2. This is fine if you want to boot two different OS at different times, but the EFI partition should point to its own C: drive partition, not to the other drive.

 

[drumdr0id]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Looking at your screenshot for Disk Manager, it seems you had two physical drives. If the laptop that I work on, has the option to have 2 physical storage drives, I tend to have one for the OS, which is usually on a smaller capacity SSD while the other drive is usually a mechanical drive that is meant for storage and is just one large partition.

my Omen laptop
What is the model/SKU for your Omen laptop?

I would leave the Samsung SSD drive;
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/samsung-pm961-256-gb.d1201
as is and then replace the failing drive with another 2.5" drive sans any migrations, then in Disk Manager create the new drive as one single partition.

It's an Omen dc0xxx
Product ID 00325-96557-74603-AAOEM
I know there are a lot of different versions of the omen.


I completely didn't understand what that Samsung drive was, or how everything was booting from there.
So are you saying I can just retain the Samsung SSD as my main boot drive, and just use the new Inland SSD as a data drive? Because that would make things a LOT easier.

 

[drumdr0id]

When you cloned the old drive to the new drive, did you physically disconnect the old drive from the computer before attempting to boot up from the new drive for the first time?

If you don't unplug the old drive immediately after cloning, Windows sometimes continues using the UEFI boot partition on the old drive to start the OS on the C: partition in the new drive. The result is you cannot boot into Windows on the new drive with the old drive disconnected.

Your second screen grab shows two EFI boot partitions, one on Drive 0, the second on Drive 2. This is fine if you want to boot two different OS at different times, but the EFI partition should point to its own C: drive partition, not to the other drive.

I did in fact forget to disconnect the original when I re-booted, but I just repeated the process all over again and had the same result.

 

[Lutfij]

The OS was installed on your Samsung drive to begin with from the factory, the HDD was your storage drive until it conked(or was conking) out.

 

[drumdr0id]

The OS was installed on your Samsung drive to begin with from the factory, the HDD was your storage drive until it conked(or was conking) out.

Fair enough, but I also had the OS on the C: partition on the hard drive. They are exact mirrors of each other. Were they just cloning each other this whole time? Because they are exactly the same, with all of the same data. I got this laptop used earlier this year, but I'm using the hard drive from my previous Omen laptop, I just reconnected the old Omen hard drive to the new Omen laptop.
I guess it doesn't matter so long as it works. Thanks for your help. I didn't know if I could rely on that internal Samsung drive to be a permanent boot drive.