Copied SSD Will Not Boot

Argonian · 24 Apr 2016

I have 2 SSD's, one of which I installed Windows 10 on. I copied everything from the Win10 SSD to the other one. It is an exact copy, all of the partitions are the same and everything. However, the other SSD will not boot. It always gives the message about inserting the boot drive. It does this no matter how/where the new SSD is plugged in. Having just the new one, or having both the old and new ones, no matter what, it will not boot from the new one. Booting from the old one works just fine though.

Is there a way to fix this? Since both the SSD's are exactly the same, I don't understand what could be going wrong.

It should be noted that there was another thread that described this problem, but all the answers involved a boot disk. I don't even have a disk drive, let alone a boot disk.

NavyLCDR · 24 Apr 2016

Posting a screenshot of disk management, with all the columns widened so we can read everything in them, will help us determine what is going on:
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of - Windows 10 Forums

flybynite · 24 Apr 2016

There is a big difference between copying all the files from one drive to another, and cloning the drive, or making an image of one drive to another. Chances are not everything was copied. What you need to do is get up and running with the old drive. then you need to make a rescue disk. You can get one here

Code:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=54249CF406B03EB5!1773&authkey=!AJSRBNQM1i3ilPk&ithint=file%2cISO

This is from this forum. Anyway you should be able to make a bootable USB stick. Boot into that, into a command prompt with your NONBOOTING DRIVE installed. Once you are at command prompt, find letter of drive windows is on. It might not be listed as C. If it is C drive, in the command prompt type bcdboot c:\Windows --That should do the trick. Good Luck

RolandJS · 24 Apr 2016

And, for future use, one can purchase an in-expensive BluRay player/cd-dvd reader/writer external device. Make restorable OS partition and data partition backups when possible, after the initial set up dust settles [I mean using an external hard-drive or two, and Macrium Reflect, Acronis True Image, or something similar, free or pay-for].