Windows 10 boot problem

ARPG · 24 Jan 2021

I have a pc with Windows 10 pro it had 2 hdd 1 seagate 500gb and 1 wd blue 1 tb , the seagate started to present problems so i bought a ssd hp s700 and installed Windows 10 pro in it, it was dual booting and i was transfering the files between the disks, after that i take out the seagate hdd and put it in another machine (formated and installed linux) but now i can not boot form the s700, i tried configuring the bios to no avail, any help is welcome. Thanks.

Samuria · 24 Jan 2021

Welcome to the forum. You made a common mistake you installed 10 with 2 drives and it's put the boot files on the second drive and having formatted it you can't copy them. You don't say if you disk is mrb or uefi . If you boot the install disk/usb then select repair it should fix it

Paul Black · 24 Jan 2021

Hello @ARPG,
Welcome to TenForums.

ARPG said:

. . . after that I take out the seagate hdd and put it in another machine (formatted and installed Linux) but now I can not boot form the s700, I tried configuring the bios to no avail, . . .

This might explain why . . .

Disconnect ALL Other Disks

It is highly recommended that you disconnect [ temporarily unplug ] ALL other Disks [ HDD's/SSD's/USB's ] BEFORE installing Windows. The reasons for this are . . .

You CAN'T accidentally OVERWRITE a connected Disk.
The BOOTLOADER [ boot configuration files ] will get installed on the correct Disk [ because Windows has the tendency to install the bootloader rather randomly on ANY connected Disk ], and therefore STOP problems with booting once the installation is complete.

Once the installation is complete . . .

Check that the OS boots correctly.
Check if the boot order in the BIOS/UEFI settings are correct [ if NOT, adjust accordingly ].
Reconnectthe other Disks.

EXPLANATION:

Windows uses a different partition structure for BIOS/UEFI. During the installation process, Windows asks which Disk / Partition you want to use for the Windows C:\ drive, it does NOT however, necessarily use the same Disk for the other Partitions, and can therefore incorrectly create the hidden recovery partition on ANY attached Disk.

Additionally, for BIOS, if another Disk is left attached, and at a latter stage you remove that Disk, you will find that the OS will NOT boot. If you check the BIOS, you will see that the OS has assigned the AHCI/RAID setting instead of the LEGACY setting and set it up as RAID, therefore breaking the boot process.

I hope this helps.

ARPG · 24 Jan 2021

Samuria said:

Welcome to the forum. You made a common mistake you installed 10 with 2 drives and it's put the boot files on the second drive and having formatted it you can't copy them. You don't say if you disk is mrb or uefi . If you boot the install disk/usb then select repair it should fix it

Hello, thanks for the welcome i booted the install usb, the tried to repair with startutp repair, first with all the disk connected and then only with the disk with W10 connected to no avail , its there something i can do?(It is UEFI) Thanks.

P.S: Thanks for the welcome Paul.

Samuria · 24 Jan 2021

Have you got anyway of seeing the disk structure we need to know if there is a uefi parition or not. If all else fails wipe the drive leave it blank with no other drives and do a clean install its pain but often quicker than wasting hours messing about

NavyLCDR · 24 Jan 2021

Samuria said:

Have you got anyway of seeing the disk structure we need to know if there is a uefi parition or not. If all else fails wipe the drive leave it blank with no other drives and do a clean install its pain but often quicker than wasting hours messing about

It takes 5 minutes to create an EFI system partition. If it is an MBR drive and booting in legacy mode just make the C: drive partition active and bootable.