Solved Complete OS on two disks. If I remove one disk, will PC boot into other?

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

When I added a new M2, I used MR to "restore" my entire main disk to the new one. I've tried to get the boot order to make the new disk the primary booter, but so far, no luck.
If I physically detach the old primary boot disk, and then boot with the new disk as first in the order, will that succeed in making the new disk the boot OS?

NavyLCDR · Mar 28, 2023

If you can't boot from it now, then removing the other disk will not make it bootable. We need to see a screenshot of disk management, please.

How to Post a Screenshot of Disk Management

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Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

Here she be:

NavyLCDR · Mar 28, 2023

Try opening a command prompt with admin privileges and run:

Code:

diskpart
select disk 2
select part 1
assign letter=t
exit
bcdboot I:\Windows /s T: /f UEFI
exit

Then see if you can get it into the BIOS boot order. And, yes, you can also try removing the first disk (just unplugging a cable from it is enough).

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

It's in the boot order and has been, but when I make it 1st choice, it doesn't work.

I did the diskpart thing you suggested. Then I went to the BIOS and set the order.

M.2 Drive 1:
Windows Boot Manager
SATA 1: Samsung SSD 870 EVO 250GB
Windows Boot Manager
Windows Boot Manager

Doesn't work. I get a Your device ran into a problem ...
Then restart brings up a sequence of choices. The best one is re-enter the BIOS, and then I re-order to SATA 1 first, M.2 Drive 1 second. Works.

Isn't it strange that the BIOS has a complete description of the SATA disk, but nothing on the M.2? Why doesn't it seem to know what that M.2 is?

Device Mgr has no flags:

NavyLCDR · Mar 28, 2023

It sounds like a problem with the Windows installation itself and not with the boot files. You probably need to add the NVMe driver as a boot driver. The way I have done it in the past is to boot into safe mood. Delete all of the disk and storage drivers. Shutdown, then do the image and move it to the new platform (this was used back in the days of moving from IDE to SATA). Then when it boots, instead of Windows looking for the old disk controller to boot from, it looks for new controllers to add drivers for.

I think there is a way with bcdedit to edit it to make the current installation boot into safe mode.

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

I went into Dev Mgr and checked drivers for that disk. No problem. I "did the image and moved it to the new platform.." I'm not at all sure what to do in Safe Mode to make the system delete all disk and storage drivers. Any help you can offer in the way of directions will be forever appreciated.

NavyLCDR · Mar 28, 2023

Wisewiz said:
I went into Dev Mgr and checked drivers for that disk. No problem. I "did the image and moved it to the new platform.." I'm not at all sure what to do in Safe Mode to make the system delete all disk and storage drivers. Any help you can offer in the way of directions will be forever appreciated.

Go into device manager. Right click on the disk controller device and click uninstall (you do not need to check the box to uninstall the drivers, just the device). They are under the category of IDE and SATA or something like that. Under storage controllers will probably be an NVM express device or donating like that.

You are moving the Windows from booting from a SATA platform to booting from an NVME platform.

Winuser · Mar 28, 2023

If you don't get it working there is another way to get it to boot. It takes a little work though. Download the NVME driver for your device. Make an image of your C: partion. Make a Windows install disk. Shutdown the computer and disconnect the Sata drive. Restart the computer with the install disk and do a clean install. You may need the driver to get the installer to reconize the drive. After you get Windows running on your new drive you can restore your image of the C: partition from your old drive to the C: partition on your new drive. Rememer, just the C: partition. I had to do it years ago because of a problem created by the way I had setup a dual boot system.

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

NavyLCDR said:
Go into device manager. Right click on the disk controller device and click uninstall (you do not need to check the box to uninstall the drivers, just the device). They are under the category of IDE and SATA or something like that. Under storage controllers will probably be an NVM express device or donating like that.

You are moving the Windows from booting from a SATA platform to booting from an NVME platform.

Okay, I showed you what I found for the disks in #5 above. I uninstalled the 970. and rebooted. The 970 was returned to the list in Dev Mgr.

Under storage, I find this:

Do you suggest I uninstall the NVMe controllers (both)?

Then, if I (1) uninstall the disk and (2) uninstall the controllers, what do I do after rebooting that will make me able to boot into my NVMe?

I really appreciate your help and patience, LCDR.

(I didn't understand "donating," and assumed it was a typo.)

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

Winuser said:
If you don't get it working there is another way to get it to boot. It takes a little work though. Download the NVME driver for your device. Make an image of your C: partion. Make a Windows install disk. Shutdown the computer and disconnect the Sata drive. Restart the computer with the install disk and do a clean install. You may need the driver to get the installer to reconize the drive. After you get Windows running on your new drive you can restore your image of the C: partition from your old drive to the C: partition on your new drive. Rememer, just the C: partition. I had to do it years ago because of a problem created by the way I had setup a dual boot system.

What do I do with the NVMe driver for my Lenovo TC? Do a clean install to where? If I do a clean install to the NVMe disk, I will lose all of my programs and all of my settings. Restoring the C: image to the new C: drive sounds like a piece of cake, though, and making an install disk is easy, too. How do I use the driiver to help the installer to recognize the new C: drive? I can't do a clean install of Windows to just drive C:.

NavyLCDR · Mar 28, 2023

So you have SATA disks connected?

Winuser · Mar 28, 2023

Wisewiz said:
What do I do with the NVMe driver for my Lenovo TC? Do a clean install to where? If I do a clean install to the NVMe disk, I will lose all of my programs and all of my settings. Restoring the C: image to the new C: drive sounds like a piece of cake, though, and making an install disk is easy, too. How do I use the driiver to help the installer to recognize the new C: drive? I can't do a clean install of Windows to just drive C:.

"What do I do with the NVMe driver for my Lenovo TC?" There are guides on how to install drivers when doing a clean install.
"Do a clean install to where?" Your NVME drive.
"If I do a clean install to the NVMe disk, I will lose all of my programs and all of my settings." If you have the image from your old drive, How would you lose them? What would you do if your old drive was to die?
The clean install will get your computer booting from the NVME drive. From there you just need to restore you old C: partition over your new C: partition. Like I said, If you can't get it working. I know it worked for me when every other attempt failed to get my computer booting becaus the boot sector was on another drive that stopped working.

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

NavyLCDR said:
So you have SATA disks connected?

Physically connected still, but I cloned my 0 disk to Disk 2 and was able to put disk 0 and 1 OFFline.

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

Well, It's done, finally. And the whole thing only took me about eight hours of futzing around with it all.

The final solution: I decided to try cloning the main disk (then Disk 0) to my new NVMe that wouldn't let me boot from it. That was quick and easy, and it had a GREAT side-effect: since I had cloned, not restored, the drive letters from the old Disk 0 came along to Disk 2, so the NVMe now contained C: and D:, and new drive letters had been assigned to the old disk's drives.

I rebooted, with the NVMe as first in the boot order, AND IT WORKED!

Then I went back into Disk Mgt and put the old Disk 0 and the old Disk 1 OFFline. If Disk 0 had been in use, ofc, Dsk Mgt wouldn't have let me do that. That told me we had a going concern here, so after a couple of restarts (just to be certain), I cracked the box and disconnected the power and data cables for both the SATA disks from the board.

Now what I've (finally) got is what you see here:

@NavyLCDR and @Winuser, I couldn't be more grateful to you for your time, your patience, and your ideas. With your help in my pocket, I kept searching for a solution that would let me use my perfectly good OS and programs on my perfectly good new M.2 disks, and I found it in the end. All is well now, as the shots demonstrate.

Yaaaaaaaaaay!

NavyLCDR · Mar 28, 2023

Glad it worked out for you!

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

The cloning process copies all of the dirty bits, whereas the image leaves a lot out. Seems the boot bits are in the clone, but not in the image. The restored image is a bit smaller than the original that the image was made from, but the cloned copy is exactly the same size.
Thanks again for your help.

Winuser · Mar 28, 2023

Wisewiz said:
The cloning process copies all of the dirty bits, whereas the image leaves a lot out. Seems the boot bits are in the clone, but not in the image. The restored image is a bit smaller than the original that the image was made from, but the cloned copy is exactly the same size.
Thanks again for your help.

The few times I tried using Clone in Macrium Reflect I had to repair the Boot partition. I never had a problem using a backup image. I'm glad your computer is up and running and I was happy to offer you my help.

Wisewiz · Mar 28, 2023

@Winuser

Maybe they've fixed that over time. I dunno. Someone on one of the MR forums suggested that the boot bits aren't copied in the image, and when an image is restored, the boot bits aren't overwritten. The clone takes everything (even the pagefile) and writes an exact copy. That's why you can't get different drive letters in a clone, but you can in a restore.

Winuser · Mar 28, 2023

Wisewiz said:
@Winuser

Maybe they've fixed that over time. I dunno. Someone on one of the MR forums suggested that the boot bits aren't copied in the image, and when an image is restored, the boot bits aren't overwritten. The clone takes everything (even the pagefile) and writes an exact copy. That's why you can't get different drive letters in a clone, but you can in a restore.

I think they are wrong or not doing it right. When I make my images I always include all partitions and never had a restore not boot.

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