Please help. Windows-issues/Wrong Boot-option

[Raystriker]

So a friend and I build my second system.Everything is fine so far except for one problem. As I don't know much about setting up Windows (was 14 when I first build my pc so a father from a friend set it up for me) I noticed something odd.

When my system boots it uses the 1 TB Samsung 970 evo plus, however, when I look into my files I can see that Windows stored its' files in the wrong ssd.

I disabled every boot-option except for the samsung where we initially installed windows on and it boots up normally, but I feel uneasy seeing the files stored in another much slower SSD.

On the screenshot you can see the partitions.

Do I have to format everything again and install windows again? Or are just the files being stored on that ssd? My friend have no idea how this could have happened.

Pls help me if you can and if you need any more info I will try to do my utmost best

My pc so far:

Ryzen R9 3900X

gtx 770

32gb gskill cl16

MSI MEG ACE x570

Samsung 970 plus 1TB

WD Blue SN500 nvme 500gb

2tb hdd seagate

[seagate_surfer]

What you have described is almost the same as what the Intel Optane module does to computers, it moves the system boot files to another faster NVMe drive for faster boot times but only that part of the system, the rest of the files/registry keys will remain in the original drive. But if that happens without the intention that the machine is configured in that way then I would assume that most likely you have made an installation of the operating system on a machine that already had another hard disk drive with an operating system.

 

This does not happen all the time, but this is one of the reasons why people are recommended to disconnect all drives from the computer, except the one that will be installed with the operating system, because having a boot drive already in the computer also means that there is already created an MBR or Master Boot Record. The MBR is created when a storage drive is partitioned, but it is not located within any partition (The master boot record is in the first sector of a disk, to be exact, the specific address on the disk is Cylinder: 0, Head: 0, Sector: 1. This also means that non-partitioned storage media do not contain a master boot record.) 

 

BIOS first looks for a target device to boot from that contains a master boot record, once found, the MBR's boot code uses the volume boot code of that specific partition to identify where the system partition is and that particular partition's boot sector is then used to start the operating system. When you install an operating system on another hard drive that is simultaneously connected to a machine that already has a boot disk drive, the BIOS detects that there is already an MBR somewhere and does not create another one, so it ends up with a computer that will try to start from the first drive that had the "coding" for MBR before and then will use the boot files or the volume boot code of the second hard drive where you installed the operating system. 

 

This is not necessarily a problem, except when you remove the first drive and Windows cannot start due to everything I've explained to you, so the best thing you can do is fix the MBR, well not "fix" but rebuild the MBR that's missing on the drive, create a bootable media from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and follow the next steps to create the MBR:

 

Usually, you will see Windows Boot Options menu after your computer restarts several times (some people hold down the power button while the computer is booting up a couple of times to see this screen). If not, you will need the original Windows 10 installation DVD (or bootable media) to repair the Master boot record, boot from the original installation DVD (or the USB). At the Welcome screen, click Repair your computer.

 

Then, you can follow the steps below to open command Prompt to fix MBR in Windows 10.

1. Choose "Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt".

2. When Command Prompt appears, enter the following lines and press Enter after each line: 

bootrec.exe /fixboot

bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
bootrec.exe /fixmbr

In some cases, you may need to run some additional commands.

bootsect /nt60 SYS or bootsect /nt60 ALL

3. Press Enter after each command and wait for each operation to finish. Exit and now go ahead and reboot your system.

 

The meaning of each command is explained in the following link: Use Bootrec.exe in the Windows RE to troubleshoot startup issues