Assigning default internal boot drive in Windows 10

willkanoff · 23 Oct 2017

Hi all!
I have DELL Alienware Aurora R4 machine with three hard drives:
1. (Local Disk)C: - (Windows 7) the “original” one that I bought with the computer.
2. (OS)D: - (Windows 10 with all updates) the one I’ve added after the “original” started to show signs of degradation.
3. (STORE)F: - (no OS) the one I use just to store stuff.

Assigning default internal boot drive in Windows 10-myarurora-r4.jpg

I’ve had dual boot and everything was hunky-dory until last week the C drive have finally kicked the bucket.
First the computer refused to shut down until I forced it. And next morning it took more than TWO hours to boot. When I finally got to the window explorer the C drive was still there but I couldn’t access or do anything to it.
In the old times I could just remove it and set boot priorities in BIOS to boot from drive D. But if I actually remove the dead drive now, the computer says that it has nothing to boot from.

It appears that with UEFI mode enabled
1. I don’t see the actual drives in the BIOS (It only shows general source types, like Hard Drive, CD/DVD, etc.) and therefore cannot boot from a particular internal drive.
2. I cannot assign Active Partition
3. I cannot remove the dead C drive
So, what the heck am I supposed to do?
P.S. Could I just buy a new drive, clone the D drive to it, call it C and use the D for something else?

Please, HELP!

dalchina · 24 Oct 2017

I'd take a simple approach.
1. Image your D: drive (e.g. Macrium Reflect (free) ) - you need a suitable external storage medium to hold your image.
2. Test D: - make sure it's sound - e.g. HDD Sentinel (trial).
3. Download an appropriate Win 10 iso (see tutorial section if unsure).
4. Wipe D:, remove C:, make sure what is now D: is in slot 0. (assuming you want to use that physical drive)
5. Clean install Win 10 to that drive (yes, activation should be automatic)
Make sure that boots ok, and also to Safe Mode.
6. Now use Macrium reflect to restore only the image of your Windows partition so as to replace the newly created Windows partition- and no other partitions.
7. Reboot; hopefully Automatic Repair will kick in, may take a few minutes. Then your PC should restart and boot.
8. Discard the disk that you removed.

9. Check your system is running ok, and boots to Safe Mode.
10. Now create a new base disk image of all partitions related to Windows (Macrium option Backup Windows), and from now on start using disk imaging routinely to protect yourself, your data and your PC so you can recover from many disasters- including disk failure- without technical help, relatively quickly.