Question Secondary drive died, messed up Windows install on main drive?

[a1337cookie]

I'm upgrading every part of this computer except for the case and storage. I'm hoping to keep the Windows installation intact. The OS is on a 240GB SSD, and the User folders (Documents, Downloads, ect.) are on a 1TB HDD.

On first boot with the new parts, the motherboard warned me about a SMART error on the HDD, saying I should backup and replace it. It still booted up just fine though, and I got drivers and stuff set up. It got some normal use for a few days.

Then, the HDD suddenly stopped showing up in file explorer. Luckily, it came back after a restart, and I began to backup the data onto an external drive. Before the backup could finish though, the computer blue-screened.

It started doing this automatic repair, which took hours, but eventually it just said it couldn't fix the problem. Now, whenever I start the computer, it goes to "Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC" blue screen.

Eventually, I got a replacement hard drive and put the backed up files onto it. But after swapping out the presumably dead drive with the new one, nothing changed. I thought maybe the backup had corrupt files, so I unplugged the HDD, leaving only the SSD in there. Still nothing changed. Even running automatic repair from a USB with Win 10 installation media did not work, just gave the same message.

With just the SSD plugged in, I tried some bootrec and chkdsk commands, but they returned some permission errors. I found out how to view the files on the disk using Notepad, and I noticed that there were drive letters for the different partitions. Here's a picture.

This seems strange to me, I feel like system reserved shouldn't have a drive letter, and Windows shouldn't be on the D: drive. The command prompt path shows X: which doesn't seem right either. Is this the cause of the problem? Any idea how to fix it?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

it sounds like your disk failing in the middle of processes has led to some corruption in your OS.

if you can connect either drive to another system and copy any important files to a backup location i would do that first.
format both SSD & HDD and reinstall the OS fresh.
then copy your personal files back to your user folders/etc.

 

[DSzymborski]

The basic problem here is the plan itself. The proper practice is a fresh Windows install on a motherboard change, not just slapping in an install for different hardware. Windows is not intended to be modular unless you have a very specific Windows-to-Go install.

Back up files that aren't backed up -- they should always be backed up regardless -- and then properly install Windows. A lot of PC problems are avoided by just doing things the right way instead of the quick way. And don't have any secondary drive attached when you install Windows on the OS drive.

 

[a1337cookie]

The basic problem here is the plan itself. The proper practice is a fresh Windows install on a motherboard change, not just slapping in an install for different hardware. Windows is not intended to be modular unless you have a very specific Windows-to-Go install.

You're right, I know the best practice is to do a fresh Windows install on a motherboard change. I've successfully transferred Windows installs several times in the past though, for my own gaming rig and for friends' rigs. So this time, I was hoping it would work again for a workstation my dad uses.

I expected some hurdles, like stuff related to activation, drivers, and compatibility. I did not expect to see a SMART error, I didn't think a motherboard swap could damage a hard drive. Maybe it somehow got damaged when I was cleaning the case? Or perhaps it was already dying, since it is a very old hard drive, and the old motherboard just didn't give a warning?

Anyway, I just figured I'd ask here in case someone knew of a way to recover from this state before I resorted to a fresh install. Like, is it safe to target commands to the D: drive, or reassign the drive letters using diskpart or something?