[SOLVED] Windows 10 How to Wipe Corrupt Install on Old Drive

[cmcc05]

In the last few months I decided to upgrade my laptop with an NVMe SSD from a hard drive. My plan was to backup and wipe the HDD install of Windows and reinstall on the SSD while keeping the HDD for extra storage space. It all went smooth and the HDD shows as the full 500gb unallocated space on disk management, but every time I want to reboot the system it prompts me with a blue screen asking which volume I would like to boot from-- Volume 8 (the working SSD volume) or Volume 3 (the corrupt/broken "deleted" volume of windows from the HDD). Booting into volume 8 works perfectly fine, but volume 3 will bring me to a startup repair screen that will always fail. Not sure how or why this volume is showing up when booting but it kind of defeats the purpose of having a high speed SSD in terms of boot times when I need to manually select the volume I want to boot. Diskpart and disk management both fail to show any "volume 3" and I'm not sure how to get rid of it. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks for the help.

Laptop- Dell XPS 15 9560

 

[Mooons]

I've had that issue when I installed windows on a different drive that I had connected. I suggest unplugging all your drives except your boot drive that you are going to wipe and install your OS fresh on.

If you are willing to reinstall windows and wipe your drives, do it that way.

 

[cmcc05]

I've had that issue when I installed windows on a different drive that I had connected. I suggest unplugging all your drives except your boot drive that you are going to wipe and install your OS fresh on.

If you are willing to reinstall windows and wipe your drives, do it that way.

Thanks for the reply. When I went to install the nvme drive there was a 32gb dell backup m.2 ssd installed that was striped in raid with the hdd. I think this is the main source of my problem but that ssd is no longer present and the hdd has been wiped to the best of my ability, but another windows install is somehow still detected on boot.

I'd like to keep the current install of winsows if possible since the nvme drive works great, its just the other detected install that I want to get rid of.

 

[Mooons]

Thanks for the reply. When I went to install the nvme drive there was a 32gb dell backup m.2 ssd installed that was striped in raid with the hdd. I think this is the main source of my problem but that ssd is no longer present and the hdd has been wiped to the best of my ability, but another windows install is somehow still detected on boot.

I'd like to keep the current install of winsows if possible since the nvme drive works great, its just the other detected install that I want to get rid of.

Using the msconfig utility tool allows you to select which version of Windows you’d like to boot directly into when you restart your computer.

Follow these steps:

1. Click Start
2. Type msconfig in the search box or open Run
3. Go to Boot
4. Select which Windows version you’d like to boot into directly
5. Press Set as Default
6. You can delete the earlier version by selecting it and then clicking Delete
7. Click Apply
8. Click OK
9. Restart your computer

If you choose to delete a version from the Boot tab of msconfig, that Windows version won’t be deleted, but it won’t be displayed on the Windows Boot Manager screen.

 

[cmcc05]

Using the msconfig utility tool allows you to select which version of Windows you’d like to boot directly into when you restart your computer.

Follow these steps:

1. Click Start
2. Type msconfig in the search box or open Run
3. Go to Boot
4. Select which Windows version you’d like to boot into directly
5. Press Set as Default
6. You can delete the earlier version by selecting it and then clicking Delete
7. Click Apply
8. Click OK
9. Restart your computer

If you choose to delete a version from the Boot tab of msconfig, that Windows version won’t be deleted, but it won’t be displayed on the Windows Boot Manager screen.

That worked beautifully! Deleted the Windows 10 on disk D and there's no more hesitation while booting anymore. Just out of curiosity, is that partial windows install gone for good or is it still there just not bootable?

 

[Mooons]

That worked beautifully! Deleted the Windows 10 on disk D and there's no more hesitation while booting anymore. Just out of curiosity, is that partial windows install gone for good or is it still there just not bootable?

You're welcome! It should delete it completely but you can always check the HDD in file explorer and see if any files are there.