Question Why does my new Windows installation require the old SSD (volume) to be present ?

[rasmasyean]

Hi,

I had a SSD with Windows on it.
I installed an M.2 SSD and installed Windows on that.
On startup it prompts me to select a volume from the 2.
I formatted my SSD and it still prompts me to select a volume.
I removed the SSD and now I can't boot. The M.2 SSD is not in the boot menu in the BIOS.

What's with this?

Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Because you installed Windows on the new M.2 drive with the old drive still connected.

Doing that, windows put the boot partition on the other drive.

The way to prevent this is to have only ONE drive physically connected during the install.

The first part of this tutorial speaks to this issue:

How To - Windows 10 clean install tutorial

If you are looking for the Windows 11 Clean install tutorial, you can find that here: Windows 11 Clean install tutorial (Click here) Otherwise, welcome to the Windows 10 Clean install tutorial This tutorial is intended to help you, step by step, to perform a clean install of Windows...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[rasmasyean]

That's totally ridiculous, I don't remember it ever telling me I'm going to do that. Who the heck designed this installation procedure?

Don't tell me I have to reinstall the whole thing over again.

You can't transfer a boot file or something into a drive? I remember doing that a long time ago. Is Windows 10+ different now?

 

[USAFRet]

That's totally ridiculous, I don't remember it ever telling me I'm going to do that. Who the heck designed this installation procedure?

Don't tell me I have to reinstall the whole thing over again.

You can't transfer a boot file or something into a drive? I remember doing that a long time ago. Is Windows 10+ different now?

Right, you did not tell it to do that.
It just does it.

@SkyNetRising can probably assist in getting a new boot partition on the desired drive.

Again, it is nothing you did or selected, except for having more than one drive physically connected during the install.
This is why the absolute best practice is to have only one.

 

[rasmasyean]

Formatting the drive doesn't get rid of the boot partition in it? There's still something hidden which has the volume info?

 

[USAFRet]

Formatting the drive doesn't get rid of the boot partition in it? There's still something hidden which has the volume info?

Formatting in File Explorer, no.

That boot partition is a whole different partition, and not seen in File Explorer.

Show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

 

[TerryLaze]

Formatting the drive doesn't get rid of the boot partition in it? There's still something hidden which has the volume info?

Getting rid of the boot partition on the ssd will not help with getting the m2 drive bootable, it will just make the ssd unbootable.

Boot into windows with the ssd connected and download and run the free version of easybcd, go to the BCD backup/repair tab and select 'change boot drive' from the first list and select the drive letter the M2 drive shows up as in windows.
This will make the M2 drive bootable and copy over the boot menu from the ssd to the M2.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Boot into windows with the ssd connected and download and run the free version of easybcd, go to the BCD backup/repair tab and select 'change boot drive' from the first list and select the drive letter the M2 drive shows up as in windows.
This will make the M2 drive bootable and copy over the boot menu from the ssd to the M2.

You keep recommending easybcd free version, but does it support GPT drives and UEFI?
Can it create UEFI bootloader partition?

As far as I know, it supports only MBR drives and legacy boot.
For UEFi system it is useless.

 

[TerryLaze]

You keep recommending easybcd free version, but does it support GPT drives and UEFI?
As far as I know, it supports only MBR drives and legacy boot.

No it supports UEFI/GPT it just has limited options because UEFI/GPT is "limited" , as in you can't use easybcd to boot older versions of windows or linux or that only boot with mbr or boot any vhd files, you can only use it to fix boot issues with things that boot under uefi so you lose a lot of stuff that makes easybcd great.

 

[rasmasyean]

It says this:

Operation Not Allowed!

An attempt was made to change the boot partition to a logical drive, which is not allowed. The boot partition must be a primary partition.

Please either select a different drive or convert the selected partition to a primary first, then try again.

 

[SkyNetRising]

It says this:
Operation Not Allowed!
An attempt was made to change the boot partition to a logical drive, which is not allowed. The boot partition must be a primary partition.
Please either select a different drive or convert the selected partition to a primary first, then try again.

You were asked to show Disk Management screenshot.
Upload to imgur.com and post link to it.

Easybcd will not create a bootloader partition for you. It is useless for your particular problem.

 

[rasmasyean]

Oh sorry.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsJcormXREOnmGTo9ZAMD4e0kICC?e=iz98dR

 

[SkyNetRising]

Execute following from elevated command prompt. Regular command prompt will give error on last step.
If you get any errors, then stop immediately.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 1​

(select 1863GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition x​

(select 1863GB partition, x=1 or x=2)​

shrink desired=500​

create partition efi​

format fs=fat32 quick​

assign letter=H​

exit​

bcdboot C:\windows /s H:​

Last message should be "Boot files created successfully".

Shutdown, disconnect 250GB drive,
adjust boot priorities to boot from Windows Boot Manager on 2TB drive.
Should be able to boot into windows.

After that you can reconnect 250GB drive and delete old bootloader partition from it (100MB EFI System partition).

https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/e/elevated.htm

 

[rasmasyean]

Cool thanks! It worked!

I can't seem to delete the partition though. The Delete Volume is ghosted. It only seems to work for the middle partition.

Also, is there a reason why you selected 500 (vs. 100 like the one on the SSD)?

 

[SkyNetRising]

I can't seem to delete the partition though. The Delete Volume is ghosted. It only seems to work for the middle partition.
Also, is there a reason why you selected 500 (vs. 100 like the one on the SSD)?

Disk Management will not allow deleting old EFI System partition.
You can do that with diskpart.

diskpart​

list disk​

select disk 0​

(select 238GB disk)​

list partition​

select partition 1​

(select 100MB Efi System partition)​

delete partition override​

Also, is there a reason why you selected 500 (vs. 100 like the one on the SSD)?

100MB can be too small for EFI bootloader. May result in failed windows updates.
Recommended size is 350MB to 500MB.

 

[rasmasyean]

OK so, deleting all those partitions seems to be a lot of work if you wanted to "reset" a drive with an OS on it. Isn't there some sort of "total format tool" in Windows for something like this? I mean, what would you normally do if you did't know all these commands and the procedure? Don't tell me you need to use a Windows install USB or CD just to perform these steps while not installing the OS?

Is there a difference between the bootloader you make manually and the one that is made via Windows clean installation? Judging that it's larger and all.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Isn't there some sort of "total format tool" in Windows for something like this? I mean, what would you normally do if you did't know all these commands and the procedure? Don't tell me you need to use a Windows install USB or CD just to perform these steps while not installing the OS?

diskpart clean - will clean your drive, remove all partitioning and data.
You can do it during windows install process. Press Shift+F10 to open command prompt during install.

Is there a difference between the bootloader you make manually and the one that is made via Windows clean installation? Judging that it's larger and all.

There's no difference.
It's just a matter of more control over, what is being done.

 

[pctech2005]

you could use killdisk to wipe everthing on the drive, there is a free version you can download.