[SOLVED] Windows drive broken after being used as storage for different system

[ddmcpherson]

Hey guys, it seems I have broken my work PC, possibly corrupted the drive with my recklessness. I'm in home office, so I recently removed the SSD from my work laptop and put it in my personal drive. For one week, it was amazing - whenever I wanted to work, I could just boot from the work SSD without having to unplug a single cable. However, I should have been more cautious with the drive when I wasn't booting from it. Yesterday, when I was using my own computer, I absentmindedly emptied my recycling bin - and immediately got a popup saying that there's an error on the G: drive (my work SSD). That must have been one hell of an error, because I can no longer boot from that drive. I also can't recover the system to a recovery point from last week.

This being my work PC, I don't want to hit the reset button that removes all my software - my IT colleagues would have to reinstall and reconfigure everything. Is there any clever way to get the computer to work just like it worked yesterday?

 

[USAFRet]

If you put that drive back in the work laptop, does it work or fail?

 

[ddmcpherson]

It fails, unfortunately. I tried system recovery to an earlier point while the drive was in the original work laptop.

 

[USAFRet]

You tried that Restore point while it was in the original laptop?

If that failed, and lacking a full drive backup you made while it was still in the laptop...looks like you are out of luck.
A Windows install is not nearly as modular as people think. It can easily become hosed up by running it in different hardware.

 

[ddmcpherson]

Thanks anyways. I'll be in my room, pondering why bad things happen to good people.

By the way, my boss' reaction: "Oh the thing is broken? All right, just put it back in the office, label it 'broken', and grab a new laptop from the rack." Gotta love that IT stoicism.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks anyways. I'll be in my room, pondering why bad things happen to good people.

By the way, my boss' reaction: "Oh the thing is broken? All right, just put it back in the office, label it 'broken', and grab a new laptop from the rack." Gotta love that IT stoicism.

That response is typical.
Any office that does NOT plan for hardware issues ends up spending a lot more money.

But this speaks to a few things:

1. Don't screw with your work laptop. It is not "yours".
2. Backups.
3. Windows is not nearly as modular as we all want. Don't swap it around between systems.

 

[ddmcpherson]

That response is typical.
Any office that does NOT plan for hardware issues ends up spending a lot more money.

But this speaks to a few things:

1. Don't screw with your work laptop. It is not "yours".
2. Backups.
3. Windows is not nearly as modular as we all want. Don't swap it around between systems.

Sage advice for real. If I hypothetically were to screw with the new laptop next Monday morning, I'd definitely make a disk clone first and <Mod Edit> with the clone instead.