Windows can't detect boot drive

[chrischan0323]

I have upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 recently due to being almost expired for the free upgrade. The upgrade is successful and all games can be played smoothly without any performance issue. Nevertheless, I want to try to do a clean install on my boot drive (the drive which contains Windows 10 crucial file) but it seems like Windows doesn't allow me to do that.

http://imgur.com/1wQYn0z (Local Disk is boot drive; Local Disk 2 is a partition of Local Disk)

http://imgur.com/PHXLa4F

As you can see from the images above, it only allows me to choose 2 non-boot drive. I've tried to disconnect them physically but to no avail; It will show me empty drive.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[techgeek]

Can you take a screenshot of Disk Management?

 

[maxwellmelon]

if you don't need the data in the partition on disk 0

!!!WARNING THE FOLLOWING WILL DELETE EVERYTHING with very little chance of recovery!!!

you need to manually delete the partition on the drive you want to do clean install, using the option your mouse is over that says "delete". windows 10 uses a different file system then 7 in most cases and is very likely your issue.

I strongly recommend disconnecting any hard drive your not doing install to while your installing windows. this helps prevent issues.

 

[chrischan0323]

Can you take a screenshot of Disk Management?

Sure

http://imgur.com/LRrLkE7

 

[techgeek]

OK, so you have three physical disks. I am assuming the 256GB drive is an SSD, and then you have two HDD's of 1TB and 2TB.

I also assume that you wish to install Windows on the SSD. If all my assumptions are correct, can you tell me the make / model of the SSD you have. It is always advisable to do a Secure Erase of your SSD prior to reinstalling Windows on them. Knowing the make / model will help me give you directions on how to do this. As a previous poster mentioned, disconnect your HDD's during this entire procedure to avoid an accident.

 

[chrischan0323]

OK, so you have three physical disks. I am assuming the 256GB drive is an SSD, and then you have two HDD's of 1TB and 2TB.

I also assume that you wish to install Windows on the SSD. If all my assumptions are correct, can you tell me the make / model of the SSD you have. It is always advisable to do a Secure Erase of your SSD prior to reinstalling Windows on them. Knowing the make / model will help me give you directions on how to do this. As a previous poster mentioned, disconnect your HDD's during this entire procedure to avoid an accident.

BTW, it's not SSD but HDD although it has a very small capacity compared to other modern HDD. Here's the spec of my 3 HDDs:

http://i.imgur.com/gVWlbeR.png (The boot disk)

http://i.imgur.com/Y9xmAUc.png

http://i.imgur.com/GzXREJw.png

 

[techgeek]

I assume this is an older system since the two larger drives support SATA III (6G) but are connected at SATA II speeds. I also find it curious that the 250GB drive which supports SATA II speeds is connected at SATA I speed. It might help to know what motherboard we are talking about here. Depending on the motherboard, it could be that you have the 250GB drive plugged into a third party (not native to the chipset) SATA controller which needs a driver before the drive connected to it can be seen in the Windows installer. If this is the case, I strongly suggest moving the 250GB drive to a native controller. In my experience third party controllers are usually garbage and don't offer the performance and compatibility of native SATA controllers.

So to recap, could you tell me what motherboard you have and what SATA ports each of the drives is connected to?

 

[chrischan0323]

I assume this is an older system since the two larger drives support SATA III (6G) but are connected at SATA II speeds. I also find it curious that the 250GB drive which supports SATA II speeds is connected at SATA I speed. It might help to know what motherboard we are talking about here. Depending on the motherboard, it could be that you have the 250GB drive plugged into a third party (not native to the chipset) SATA controller which needs a driver before the drive connected to it can be seen in the Windows installer. If this is the case, I strongly suggest moving the 250GB drive to a native controller. In my experience third party controllers are usually garbage and don't offer the performance and compatibility of native SATA controllers.

So to recap, could you tell me what motherboard you have and what SATA ports each of the drives is connected to?

This is the motherboard I've been using: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/H61M-P31-G3.html#down-bios

It seems like my motherboard only supports 2 SATA ports and that's why I bought an extension PCI-E card to support my 3rd SATA port which should look like this (https://www.amazon.com/Anker%C2%AE-Uspeed-Express-20-pin-Connector/dp/B007SJGGAE?ie=UTF8&ref_=pd_sim_pc_4) (Not the exact model that I'm using since I really forgot what the model is, think it's made by Jmicron)

Additionally, I connect my 2 non-boot disks into motherboard SATA ports and my boot disk is connected to that extension PCI-E SATA port.

Does it mean that I need the driver for that extension PCI-E card or should I just switch the port between the boot disk and non-boot disk?

 

[maxwellmelon]

I assume this is an older system since the two larger drives support SATA III (6G) but are connected at SATA II speeds. I also find it curious that the 250GB drive which supports SATA II speeds is connected at SATA I speed. It might help to know what motherboard we are talking about here. Depending on the motherboard, it could be that you have the 250GB drive plugged into a third party (not native to the chipset) SATA controller which needs a driver before the drive connected to it can be seen in the Windows installer. If this is the case, I strongly suggest moving the 250GB drive to a native controller. In my experience third party controllers are usually garbage and don't offer the performance and compatibility of native SATA controllers.

So to recap, could you tell me what motherboard you have and what SATA ports each of the drives is connected to?

This is the motherboard I've been using: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/H61M-P31-G3.html#down-bios

It seems like my motherboard only supports 2 SATA ports and that's why I bought an extension PCI-E card to support my 3rd SATA port which should look like this (https://www.amazon.com/Anker%C2%AE-Uspeed-Express-20-pin-Connector/dp/B007SJGGAE?ie=UTF8&ref_=pd_sim_pc_4) (Not the exact model that I'm using since I really forgot what the model is, think it's made by Jmicron)

Additionally, I connect my 2 non-boot disks into motherboard SATA ports and my boot disk is connected to that extension PCI-E SATA port.

Does it mean that I need the driver for that extension PCI-E card or should I just switch the port between the boot disk and non-boot disk?

I'm confused as to why an add in card? you have four SATA (gen 2 ports) ports on the motherboard one and two are above the corner screw and three and four are to the left of the corner screw. you shouldn't need an add in card unless you have 5 or more devices.

and short answer is yes if you are going to install to a hard drive hooked up to the add in card you will need to download the driver on a second usb device and windows ask if you need to install any drivers hit yes and then open that driver up.

 

[techgeek]

If you are using a third party card, you need a driver for Windows to initialize it before it can see any drives attached to it. By the way, the add-in card you linked isn't a PCI-E to SATA adapter, it's a PCI-E to USB 3.0 adapter.

However it is always advisable to use your motherboards native SATA ports for boot drives. Having it on third party controllers and / or add-in cards only complicates the boot process unnecessarily.

Now if that is indeed your motherboard (H61M-P31 (G3)), then it does indeed have 4 native SATA ports as Maxwellmelon has pointed out. I would connect your boot drive (256GB HDD) to SATA 1 and the other two HDD's to SATA 2 and 3. It's not absolutely necessary to have them in this order, just easier to keep straight. If you have an ODD (Optical Disk Drive) then you can use SATA 4 or your add in card. However if you use any drive on the add-in card, it will be inaccessible until you've installed Windows and the cards driver.

Once you have the drives installed in this way, they should all be visible in the Windows installer.

Now if you insist on having your boot drive on the add-in card (I don't recommend it) then we need to know exactly what card you have so we can direct you on which driver to download to get the Windows installer to see it and thus any drives connected to it. There is a way to provide the drivers to the installer so this can be accomplished. Again though, I would recommend against this approach. You would make booting unnecessarily complicated. It could also make it more difficult to recover from boot problems down the road.

 

[chrischan0323]

If you are using a third party card, you need a driver for Windows to initialize it before it can see any drives attached to it. By the way, the add-in card you linked isn't a PCI-E to SATA adapter, it's a PCI-E to USB 3.0 adapter.

However it is always advisable to use your motherboards native SATA ports for boot drives. Having it on third party controllers and / or add-in cards only complicates the boot process unnecessarily.

Now if that is indeed your motherboard (H61M-P31 (G3)), then it does indeed have 4 native SATA ports as Maxwellmelon has pointed out. I would connect your boot drive (256GB HDD) to SATA 1 and the other two HDD's to SATA 2 and 3. It's not absolutely necessary to have them in this order, just easier to keep straight. If you have an ODD (Optical Disk Drive) then you can use SATA 4 or your add in card. However if you use any drive on the add-in card, it will be inaccessible until you've installed Windows and the cards driver.

Once you have the drives installed in this way, they should all be visible in the Windows installer.

Now if you insist on having your boot drive on the add-in card (I don't recommend it) then we need to know exactly what card you have so we can direct you on which driver to download to get the Windows installer to see it and thus any drives connected to it. There is a way to provide the drivers to the installer so this can be accomplished. Again though, I would recommend against this approach. You would make booting unnecessarily complicated. It could also make it more difficult to recover from boot problems down the road.

Damn I feel so dumb now...

Anyway, I have successfully clean installed the boot disk but really really unfortunately, it seems like Windows Update breaks my PC 🙁 Nevertheless I think I've solved my previous issue so I will mark this as my answer.

Thanks everyone!

 

[techgeek]

Can you provide the details of how Windows Update breaks your PC?

Not to long ago, I was helping a friend of my son's assemble a new PC. Once I had the chipset drivers and a few other installed, I installed AVG Free before downloading the rest of the things he needed. I did this before performing Windows Update. After AVG installed, the next reboot failed to load Windows. After a little troubleshooting I did a restore and everything worked. Not knowing exact what was going on at this point, I re-installed AVG and again had the issue. At this point I knew it had something to do with AVG. Later after getting the rest of the software and drivers installed, we did the Windows Updates. Afterwards AVG installed and didn't cause any issues. So apparent something in AVG had been changed and required the Updates to be installed.

I'm not saying this is your issue, just an illustration of the sort of things that can cause issues following or preceding Windows Update.

 

[chrischan0323]

Can you provide the details of how Windows Update breaks your PC?

Not to long ago, I was helping a friend of my son's assemble a new PC. Once I had the chipset drivers and a few other installed, I installed AVG Free before downloading the rest of the things he needed. I did this before performing Windows Update. After AVG installed, the next reboot failed to load Windows. After a little troubleshooting I did a restore and everything worked. Not knowing exact what was going on at this point, I re-installed AVG and again had the issue. At this point I knew it had something to do with AVG. Later after getting the rest of the software and drivers installed, we did the Windows Updates. Afterwards AVG installed and didn't cause any issues. So apparent something in AVG had been changed and required the Updates to be installed.

I'm not saying this is your issue, just an illustration of the sort of things that can cause issues following or preceding Windows Update.

It's quite simple. I just straight did the Windows Update after I could see the screen. After Windows Update installed, it did a restart and everything seemed to be fine. Then I shut down the PC and reconnect my 2 other non-boot disks. Suddenly, when my PC was booting, it showed an error stated as "BOOTMGR IS MISSING". I did a quick check on my BIOS and nothing was wrong as it was my boot disk was the first disk to be booted. Then I tried to repair my PC by using Recovery method or Start-Up Repair but nothing worked. Finally, I reformatted the boot disk the second time and now everything seemed to be fine at least.

So, FYI, should I try again to do Windows Update for the second time or hold off and defer the upgrade until the Windows Update seems to be stable? I just don't wanna do same thing again...

 

[techgeek]

It could be that it had nothing to do with Windows Update since you connected the two HDD's after the Windows Update. It could have been tripping up and trying to boot from one of the other drives.

Since you have it back up and running. Do you have the other two drives disconnected now? If so, then I would try running Windows Update with them disconnected, then reboot afterwards leaving them disconnected. If it boots then you know it had nothing to do with Windows Update.

 

[chrischan0323]

It could be that it had nothing to do with Windows Update since you connected the two HDD's after the Windows Update. It could have been tripping up and trying to boot from one of the other drives.

Since you have it back up and running. Do you have the other two drives disconnected now? If so, then I would try running Windows Update with them disconnected, then reboot afterwards leaving them disconnected. If it boots then you know it had nothing to do with Windows Update.

You may right but I would better wait for the next anniversary Windows Update. Don't wanna take the risk anymore, just wanna start playing some games now. Cheers!