Setting up Windows boot manager to boot from SSD as secondary drive

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  1. Posts : 40
    Windows 8.1/10 Enterprise x64
       #1

    Setting up Windows boot manager to boot from SSD as secondary drive


    Hi, my situation is such that I had an internal mechanical HDD as the only booting drive. After adding a SSD inplace of optical drive it appears in system as 2nd hard drive without chance to change the order in UEFI BIOS. So it's internal drive #2. I used Paragon Hard Disk Manager to migrate my Windows OS from the old drive to the SSD. Everything went fine and the partitions structure seems mirrored 1:1 to the SSD. During the migration process I instructed HDM to updqate boot entries to reflect the new state.
    On reboot however I'm still getting only one entry in boot menu and that's the Windows instance on old drive, ie. the clone on SSD is invisible.
    I need to know what can I do so the bootmgr offers me bot instances on both drives, where the SSD clone will be primary (default). I wouldn't make my PC unbootable so wanting experimenting.
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  2. Posts : 8,059
    windows 10
       #2

    First job is to swap sata cables so SSD is drive 0 then pull the power on the old hd and make sure the ssd will boot until your sure it can boot its not a good idea to do anything else
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  3. Posts : 7,724
    3-Win-7Prox64 3-Win10Prox64 3-LinuxMint20.2
       #3

    Hi,
    You might also clear secure boot keys if it's enabled.
    But yeah can't have both hooked up at the same time.
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  4. Posts : 40
    Windows 8.1/10 Enterprise x64
    Thread Starter
       #4

    I'm afraid I can't swap the cables in notebook, the SSD is in position of ODD which has SATA position #2 (fixed).
    I must come out of the situation when my primary system is stored on drive #2.
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  5. Posts : 40
    Windows 8.1/10 Enterprise x64
    Thread Starter
       #5

    ThrashZone said:
    You might also clear secure boot keys if it's enabled.
    How can I clear secure boot keys?

    Is there something I can do with bcdedit to force bootmgr use the Widows on drive #2?
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  6. Posts : 30,532
    Windows 10 (Pro and Insider Pro)
       #6

    Boot with Macrium (or Kyhi's rescue drive) and let it rebuild boot menu.

    I find it the most reliable tool for this
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  7. Posts : 40
    Windows 8.1/10 Enterprise x64
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Thanks for the suggestion. I'll tell back how it went.
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  8. Posts : 30,532
    Windows 10 (Pro and Insider Pro)
       #8

    Anakunda said:
    Thanks for the suggestion. I'll tell back how it went.
    Here are tutorials: macrium.com - fix_boot_problems
      My Computers


  9. Posts : 8,059
    windows 10
       #9

    The cables are not ideal but it will work as is the problem is if its a cloned system that windows write a disk signature to the drive so it know what the drive is you will have 2 with the same number so it will confuse windows which disk id which so ideal test the new one will boot on its own and then format the old one
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  10. Posts : 18,424
    Windows 11 Pro
       #10

    Boot into Windows on the old HDD. You should see the new Windows on the SSD as it's own drive letter. Let's assume it gets E:. Open a command or powershell with admin privileges and run the command:

    Bcdboot E:\Windows

    Change the E: to whatever drive letter the new Windows partition gets. Then reboot.
      My Computer


 

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