Windows 10 reinstallation fails - Media on USB drive does not boot

Folks,

I need to replace my failing (but still functioning) Hard Drive on my Dell XPS 8300 Desktop. The operating system is Windows 10.

My plan has been to buy a brand new hard drive (DONE), install a fresh bootable Windows 10 operating system on it while connected via USB, swap the old and the new drives, and then reinstall all other applications on the new drive one by one, and finally copy the data back on. No rush, but should work.

I bought the new drive, connected it to the computer via USB (using a USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE device made by SIIG), then from (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10) downloaded the Media Creation tool (MediaCreationTool.exe), ran it from the desktop, created the ESD-USB file structure on the new hard drive, and restarted the computer.

When restarting the computer, I went into the setup (F2) to change the boot order:

• First time, I placed the ‘USB Hard drive’ ahead of the Main hard drive. The Main hard drive booted ignoring the ‘USB’ Hard drive.
• Second time, I tried again by fully disabling the main Hard drive, but with that setting, the computer didn’t start at all and I got the following message:

‘Reboot and Select proper Boot device
Or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key’

So why am I failing to boot from the external hard drive?

Is my strategy of directly installing the new Windows 10 on the external Hard drive wrong?

The Microsoft support site’s instruction is to use a ‘USB flash drive or DVD.’ But instead of the USB flash drive, I used the actual Hard Drive that I intend to install Windows 10 on. Is that wrong? And why? I did so on the understanding that the instruction to use a flash drive or DVD is so as to install the operating system on a different PC. In my case I want to install on the existing PC but on a new drive.

One way of course would be to follow the Microsoft instruction create the new installation media on the flash drive or DVD, swap the drives and boot from the flash drive or DVD. But why would the Windows Creation media boot from the flash drive or DVD but not from the USB Hard drive?

Another reason for wanting to install Windows directly on the external Hard Drive is to have access to all my application at all times.

Help please.

I would approach the problem a different way. While your current HDD is still working, why not make a system image including any data partitions to an external HDD? Then you could swap out the failing drive, put the new one in and restore the image to it. You'd end up with the same system with all your apps and files, but running on a new drive.

If you don't have a CD/DVD drive you'd need to make a USB Recovery Drive (no need to include system files) and boot from that to perform the restore. If you do have a CD/DVD drive you are offered the chance to make a restore boot disk at the end of making a system image.

Create System Image in Windows 10

Create Recovery Drive in Windows 10

Use the media creation tool to download ISO to your working windows installation. Format your external HDD NTFS. Mount your ISO, and open command as admin. Run this command changing paths as necessary. Now reboot, and select external to boot from.

Code:

Dism /apply-image /imagefile:N:\Sources\install.wim /index:1 /ApplyDir:E:\

Make sure you install the correct image, as MS has several images in one install.wim. You can check which number corresponds to the version you wish to install by running this command after mounting the ISO.

Code:

dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:N:\sources\install.wim

Again you will want to change the path letter to correspond to the drive of your mounted ISO.

Thank you. I completely forgot that part. EasyBCD works really well for this.

topgundcp said:

Easy BCD would work ie. create a BCD in C: Drive (without System Reserved). However, Easy BCD only works with MBR type installation, does not support UEFI)

This is from the neosmart.net site.

If your Windows PC is booting in EFI mode, Microsoft has blocked the loading of legacy or non-Windows operating systems from the BCD menu. This means that you can no longer use EasyBCD to add Windows 9x, XP, or Server 2003 entries to the BCD bootloader menu. You also cannot add DOS, Linux, BSD, or Mac entries. You can add multiple Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 entries; and you can also boot into BCD-based portable media, such as WinPE 2.0+ images.

Code:

https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/uefi/

topgundcp said:

@flybynite
For UEFI. It is better to use:
Manage EFI/UEFI boot options & Manage EFI System Partitions & Fix EFI/UEFI boot issues the easy way!

Well you would know better than I since my MB is MBR only.