[SOLVED] PC will not boot unless my HDD is plugged in even though windows is installed on NVME?

[KingC12]

This was a bit of an odd one, last night my new case came, i needed something large for better airflow so i was removing all my parts out my previous case and putting them in my new one. Everything was fine but my fans havent arrived yet, so i just did a quick job and will sort the rest out today, so i forgot to plug my 3TB HDD into sata. When i did this and turned the PC on it wouldnt boot, despite the fact that both my NVME M.2 drives were detected by the bios. I have a 500GB NVME with my Windows on it, and a 2TB for all my games. But it wouldnt boot and wouldnt recognise the boot device.

So plugged it in and went straight into windows, so no real issue. The issue i do have though, is that i was planning to remove all HDDs and never have to use them again. If i was to remove the drive would i need to reinstall windows? or is there something else that i can do?

Also whats the cause for it? because all my windows files are on the M.2 NVME.

Oh a little side note aswell, when i first built the system start of lockdown last year, i started with the 500GB and the HDD, only just bought the 2TB a couple of weeks ago. (thought that was worth mentioning just incase)

 

[Colif]

can you show us a screenshot of Disk management?
expand all the columns so we can see details in top and bottom sections
upload to an image sharing website and show link here.

Was hdd in PC when you installed on NVME?

 

[Hellfire13]

When you installed Windows initially, your HDD was plugged in. Sometimes, Windows has this ugly tendency of parking some system files on a secondary drive if it detects one. That is the only reason that comes to my mind. And if that is the case, your Windows wont work without the HDD.

 

[Colif]

that was impression I got, hence asking for disk management to confirm it.

Can fix it, just need to look at drives.

 

[KingC12]

that was impression I got, hence asking for disk management to confirm it.

Can fix it, just need to look at drives.

Yeah i dont know how to upload images here, but on my 3TB HDD it has system reserved partition is this what youre talking about?

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah i dont know how to upload images here, but on my 3TB HDD it has system reserved partition is this what youre talking about?

Upload your pic to imgur.com, and post the link here.

And yes, that System Reserved partition is the initial boot partition.

 

[Hellfire13]

Yeah i dont know how to upload images here, but on my 3TB HDD it has system reserved partition is this what youre talking about?

Yes, that's the culprit. I think you need to run Repair Install from installation media to get rid of the HDDs, after detaching them. That should probably work.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I think you need to run Repair Install from installation media to get rid of the HDDs, after detaching them. That should probably work.

Nope.
Missing bootloader partition on NVME drive has to be created manually. Automatic repair can't fix it.

Or you can do clean install (clean the drive and do full install from zero).

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, that's the culprit. I think you need to run Repair Install from installation media to get rid of the HDDs, after detaching them. That should probably work.

No, that hasn't worked like that in a long time.

 

[Colif]

I was getting screenshots so Skynet could show you how to fix it.

I should copy the steps for next time.

 

[Hellfire13]

Nope.
Missing bootloader partition on NVME drive has to be created manually. Automatic repair can't fix it.

Or you can do clean install (clean the drive and do full install from zero).

Ahh, the fixboot process....I see. Havent done that in ages.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Ahh, the fixboot process....I see. Havent done that in ages.

Not fixboot.

You create bootloader partition manually.
For legacy boot system - primary partition, active, ntfs formatted. For UEFI boot system - EFI system partition, fat32 formatted.
Then use bcdboot command to create bootloader files on newly created partition.