Question Unable to boot to Windows 10 after adding a separate SSD with Linux installed

modeonoff

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Hello, I installed Windows 10 on a Samsung 970 Evo NvmeSSD. It has been working fine for three weeks. I added a Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD and installed Linux on it. Now, even I went to BIOS and moved Windows to the top of the boot sequence (tried both moving 970 EVO and Windows Boot Manager) on the top of the list, Windows dows not boot. Screen turned blank with a cursor on top left and then it went to BIOS screen automatically. Removing the 850 EVO resulted in the same situation.

Also tried F12 to select the 970 EVO as the boot device in the boot menu. Again it returned to BIOS automatically.

Could you please help? I am using Gigabyte Adrous z390 Xtreme with 9900K.
 

modeonoff

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ITs sounds like linux overwrote windows 10 boot info.

Try this:
change boot order so USB is first, hdd second
boot from installer
on screen after languages, choose repair this pc, not install.
choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
Follow this: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-rebuild-the-bcd-in-windows-2624508

Thanks. I have done that. The Repair option never works. The problem is after typing "bbootrec /rebuildbcd", the system returned:

Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 2
[1] C:¥Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/No(N)/All(A): Y <--- I typed Y
[2] C:¥Windows.old¥Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/No(N)/All(A): Y <--- I typed Y
The requested system device cannot be found.
X:¥Sources>


Then, I followed Step.1 and Step.2 of:
https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmagic/the-requested-system-device-cannot-be-found.html

Next, from the link of Step.2, I followed the steps in:

Everything looked good but when I executed the last command: bcdboot c:\windows

I got: Failure when attempting to copy boot files.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I wouldn't try to add windows.oid and see if it can get any further . Just add number 1.

Windows.oid is an older install of win 10, it should have deleted itself 10 days after you installed the last update.

As for last error -

Fix BCDboot failure when attempting to copy boot files via CMD
If you boot your WinPE drive via UEFI interface/options, BCDBOOT will default to try working with GPT and EFI firmware. With an EFI reserve partition missing because it wasn’t created, you will get: Failure when attempting to copy boot files. If you boot your WinPE drive via BIOS / LEGACY options, BCDBOOT will default to try working with MBR and BIOS firmware.

Therefore, if you are booting non-EFI to USB drive, but your drive is GPT and UEFI, you should run this command:

bcdboot c:\Windows /s S: /f EFI

Where c: means Windows partition and S: is the EFI partition.

Conversely, if you cannot or don’t want to run LEGACY, you should use this command for generating the old MBR style drive.

bcdboot c:\Windows /s S: /f BIOS

Where S: in this case is system partition.

If you are not sure whether the computer is UEFI support or LEGACY support, you can try this command:

bcdboot c:\windows /s s: /f ALL

Where ALL means copy both the BIOS and UEFI files to the disk

Remember S is the system partition, not the partition containing windows files
https://www.disk-partition.com/articles/bcdboot-failure-when-attempting-to-copy-boot-files.html
 

modeonoff

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I wouldn't try to add windows.oid and see if it can get any further . Just add number 1.

Windows.oid is an older install of win 10, it should have deleted itself 10 days after you installed the last update.

As for last error -


https://www.disk-partition.com/articles/bcdboot-failure-when-attempting-to-copy-boot-files.html

I chose N after being asked:

[2] C:¥Windows.old¥Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes(Y)/No(N)/All(A):"

Again it states that "The requested system device cannot be found."