I found out by chance that my system files have moved from my C: drive to a small 2.5 inch HDD that i salvaged from an old laptop and used as a backup drive.
Here's a screen shot of Disk Management if it helps.
How do I restore my system and MBR to C: on Disk 0 and my E: to Disk 1 with just my backup on it?
Regards
Les
Your mbr hasn't moved - on BIOS PCs the MBR is just the first track on the disk. You are booting disk 1 rather than disk 0 which really isn't a problem. This is because your BIOS has disk 1 higher in it's list than disk 0.
Your issue is you are seeing disk 1 (partition "Expansion Drive") as system.
Easiest thing to do would be to mark this partition as inactive in diskpart:
- select disk 1
- select partition 1
- inactive
Then reboot.
Make sure you have some sort of bootable Windows (installation USB for example) before you start. If you do you can boot from that and correct any mistakes.
Alternatively you could check BIOS and make sure disk0 is top of the list. In either case you don't want more than one active partition.
A Recovery Drive is another example. You can make that yourself...
Create Recovery Drive in Windows 10
Thanks both of you, just need to pluck up courage now!
Do come back to this thread and ask further questions if you have any doubts about how to proceed.
Just tried booting from C: but get the BSOD with error code 0xc000000e!
Macrium Reflect tells me there is an MBR 1 on Disk 0 and an MBR 2 on Disk 1, could the Disk 0 one be corrupted?
Can I copy the system files from the Expansion drive to the C: drive without losing my Progs and data on C: ?
Question: Does both HDD's have a OS on them? I only ask because you stated that you salvaged the 2nd drive from a laptop. In your last post you state that you now have 2 MBRs, one on each disk which to me indicates that each HDD has a OS on it. That being said, did you format the drive (wipe it clean) before using it in your current system?
The disk I salvaged has been formatted several times since it was installed.
You don't need to copy anything. Mark disk 1 (called disk 2 in Macrium as it starts counting from one not zero for some reason) inactive and then restart.
"System" just means "this is the volume I booted from". There is no data there to copy - your boot files are already on C.
Occasionally you need to edit mbr (track 0) but at this point you don't.
Just to test disconnect drive 1 and see if it still boots.
If it does we are back to post #2 - change your boot order or make disk 1 (in the Windows not Macrium sense) inactive. It will then boot fine from disk 0 without copying anything. Probably.
Please understand though that "the mbr" is the data contained in track zero of "a mbr" partitioned disk containing code telling your BIOS what to boot. This is not the same as mbr (as opposed to gpt) partitioning. One is a verb and the other a noun :)
There seems to be a problem with the bcd store. It should be on Disk 0 part 2. ( E)Just tried booting from C: but get the BSOD...
Try running startup repair from booted recovery/installation media.
That is normal. Each initialized disk will have an mbr ( on uefi systems it is called a protective mbr ).there is an MBR 1 on Disk 0 and an MBR 2 on Disk 1
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