HELP HELP HELP Broken HDD and Windows boot partition

[Alkyy]

Ill try to put it as simply as possible:

I currently have 1 SSD and 1 HDD

The HDD used to be the Windows drive

I bought a SSD, moved Windows to it and wiped the HDD

One 100MB System partition of the HDD remained

The PC doesnt boot without the HDD

Recently, my HDD broke (refer to my last post)

Yesterday it took 15 minutes to boot the PC

The HDD was at constant 100% usage in task manager

It took 3 hours to start Disk Manager

It said my HDD is empty other than that System partition(66% empty)

I had 600GB of stuff on the HDD

Windows explorer said my HDD was called "Local disk" instead of the name i gave it

I couldnt look into the HDD, error: ~"drive not connected I/O"

I set my SSD as "active" in the Disk manager because of some guide

I wanted to wait for my new SSD to arrive before doing much more

That night i had to force shutdown the PC with the power button

Today: "An operating system wasnt found. Try disconnecting any drives that dont contain a operating system. Ctrl+alt+del to restart."

 

What do i do? Can i get a simple answer? All of these guides are complicated and expect me to be some computer guru.

The guide i was reading said that maybe the system partition was a boot partition and that i had to disconnect old hdd and repair windows from usb. How safe is that?

!!! I DONT WANT TO LOSE ANY DATA !!!

 

Thanks

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

I bought a SSD, moved Windows

did you just copy the directories over? How did you accomplish this exactly?

 

4 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

One 100MB System partition of the HDD remained

Yeah that's the boot volume, the part that allows you to boot windows.

[Alkyy]

8 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

did you just copy the directories over? How did you accomplish this exactly?

It was a fresh install, backed up some stuff on an old laptop and formatted everything, i have made posts about that experience aswell but i cant easily navigate to them as im on my phone.

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, Alkyy said:

It was a fresh install, backed up some stuff on an old laptop and formatted everything, i have made posts about that experience aswell but i cant easily navigate to them as im on my phone.

Ok, if you disconnect the HDD from your system, and point the BIOS to boot from the SSD, what happens?

[Alkyy]

16 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Ok, if you disconnect the HDD from your system, and point the BIOS to boot from the SSD, what happens?

An operating system wasnt found...

nothing changed in thd BIOS either, SSD is still the only boot option (the other is "Disabled") same as an hour ago, i clicked the override boot and same thing again

[Radium_Angel]

23 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

An operating system wasnt found...

nothing changed in thd BIOS either, SSD is still the only boot option (the other is "Disabled") same as an hour ago, i clicked the override boot and same thing again

Ok, then somehow the install of Windows was either corrupted from the word go, and having the old HDD in there when you re-installed to the SSD, hosed things up.

Easiest thing to do is keep the HDD unplugged, and re-install windows on the SSD.

Where is all your data located?

[Alkyy]

22 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Ok, then somehow the install of Windows was either corrupted from the word go, and having the old HDD in there when you re-installed to the SSD, hosed things up.

Easiest thing to do is keep the HDD unplugged, and re-install windows on the SSD.

Where is all your data located?

Everything important is on the SSD.

Thats why im worried about losing data. I have previously reinstalled Windows without losing data (i think) but now its gotten complicated. 

The plan was to wait on my new SSD that i ordered last week to arrive and back stuff up on it, now i cant access anything..

Is that repair option from a usb the thing to do? And if what are the EXACT steps?

[Radium_Angel]

Just now, Alkyy said:

Everything important is on the SSD.

Thats why im worried about losing data. I have previously reinstalled Windows without losing data (i think) but now its gotten complicated. 

The plan was to wait on my new SSD that i ordered last week to arrive and back stuff up on it, now i cant access anything..

Is that repair option from a usb the thing to do? And if what are the EXACT steps?

Ok, here's what I would do. The SSD is probably safe, you just can't access it right now.

I'd pull that SSD and set it aside.

I'd also pull out the HDD since it doesn't seem to function.

I'd hit the local Craigslist/BestBuy (or equivalent) and pick up a cheap SSD, install that, install Windows.

Ensure it boots fine.

Then place your second SSD back in the system, ensure the BIOS still points to the proper device to boot from, and you should be good to go.

 

Bear in mind, if an SSD dies, data recovery is impossible. Never store data on an SSD without a solid backup plan. Period.

[Alkyy]

50 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Ok, here's what I would do. The SSD is probably safe, you just can't access it right now.

I'd pull that SSD and set it aside.

I'd also pull out the HDD since it doesn't seem to function.

I'd hit the local Craigslist/BestBuy (or equivalent) and pick up a cheap SSD, install that, install Windows.

Ensure it boots fine.

Then place your second SSD back in the system, ensure the BIOS still points to the proper device to boot from, and you should be good to go.

 

Bear in mind, if an SSD dies, data recovery is impossible. Never store data on an SSD without a solid backup plan. Period.

That is quite an expensive and time consuming solution.

Is the bootable windows usb repair not an option? All i need is for windows to make a boot partition/folder on my SSD, right?

Most of my truly important stuff is backed up elsewhere.

I REALLY need this computer functioning.

 

I have just found a windows forum post https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/windows-boot-loader-installed-itself-on-my-old/ff3dc47c-9a28-4d8f-bb94-bb2cf690e362 that deals with a similar issue but its quite complicated and i dont know whether it would help my completely unbootable PC.

[illerin]

Radium_angel method is probably the safest way to go, unless you can get access to a second computer you can plug your ssd into to pull all the data from just in case. Also another possible option for getting an SSD, Goodwills in my area carry used computer parts that are cheap. Might be an option to pick up a temp SSD for cheap.

[Radium_Angel]

2 hours ago, Alkyy said:

That is quite an expensive and time consuming solution.

Do you want it done right, where your data is safe, or quick?

Especially if you are not computer savvy.

2 hours ago, Alkyy said:

Is the bootable windows usb repair not an option?

Sure, but I can't promise Windows won't wipe the entire drive out in the process of "fixing" it. I've seen that before

[Alkyy]

30 minutes ago, illerin said:

Radium_angel method is probably the safest way to go, unless you can get access to a second computer you can plug your ssd into to pull all the data from just in case.

Lets say im able to backup what i need,

5 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Do you want it done right, where your data is safe, or quick?

Especially if you are not computer savvy.

Sure, but I can't promise Windows won't wipe the entire drive out in the process of "fixing" it. I've seen that before

Then whats the process.

I just watched a video on how to create a EFI partition, do i do that and then do repair?

What are the exact steps here?

 

Thanks for the replies

[Radium_Angel]

7 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

Lets say im able to backup what i need,

Then whats the process.

I just watched a video on how to create a EFI partition, do i do that and then do repair?

What are the exact steps here?

 

Thanks for the replies

Pull the HDD.

Use Windows media creation tool, burn to ISO, boot from that, choose "repair" option on your SSD. Sit back and let it do it's thing.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/repair-windows-10-install-using-media-creation/2fe1f4b4-eea2-4ae4-a70e-4a40e412ecb4

 

[Alkyy]

23 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

Pull the HDD.

Use Windows media creation tool, burn to ISO, boot from that, choose "repair" option on your SSD. Sit back and let it do it's thing.

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/repair-windows-10-install-using-media-creation/2fe1f4b4-eea2-4ae4-a70e-4a40e412ecb4

 

So i followed the guide:

first option to repair didnt work

Second option to rebuildbcd in command prompt didnt work, so i googled why it doesnt. One guide said that windows repair enviroment cant be detected in USB 3.0.

So i turned off pc and put the usb into a 2.0. Now i get this:

Even when i put the usb back into 3.0 it still only shows this, not the blue windows stuff.

Did the usb get corrupted?

[Radium_Angel]

59 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

Did the usb get corrupted?

That's a different error than I ran across just last night.

A system I was working on ended up being non-booting for almost the same reason you originally had

 

I used this program (the free version) to fix it

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

Give that a swing

[Alkyy]

3 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

That's a different error than I ran across just last night.

A system I was working on ended up being non-booting for almost the same reason you originally had

 

I used this program (the free version) to fix it

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

Give that a swing

I am currently following this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.diskpart.com/windows-10/missing-efi-partition-windows-10.amp.html guide, method 2 to create a EFI partition.

when i run the shrink desired command it says: the specified shrink size is too big and will cause the volume to be smaller than the minimum volume size.

when i run "shrink querymax" it says: the maximum number of reclaimable bytes is: 0 B

There is 70gb empty on that disk.

What to do

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

There is 70gb empty on that disk.

I suspect you already have an EFI boot partition on your drive, it's just corrupted, and trying to create another one is failing, before the software is seeing the 1st one.

But this is just a guess, as I don't have your system in front of me to really determine what's happening.

[Alkyy]

3 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I suspect you already have an EFI boot partition on your drive, it's just corrupted, and trying to create another one is failing, before the software is seeing the 1st one.

But this is just a guess, as I don't have your system in front of me to really determine what's happening.

Nope, there is only the big main "Partition 1" and a 500mb recovery "partition 2"

[Radium_Angel]

2 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

Nope, there is only the big main "Partition 1" and a 500mb recovery "partition 2"

Assuming Diskpart is accurate, I'm out of ideas.

I think it's time to admit defeat.

[Alkyy]

34 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Assuming Diskpart is accurate, I'm out of ideas.

I think it's time to admit defeat.

What all does installing windows over everything i have entail?

can it even make the partition?

[Radium_Angel]

4 minutes ago, Alkyy said:

What all does installing windows over everything i have entail?

can it even make the partition?

If Windows can't see existing partitions, it's going to blow away everything on the drive and start fresh...

If it *can* see partitions, then it *should* only update the existing install, but I've seen it go both ways before, so assume a fresh install will wipe the drive regardless of what Windows installer says

[Alkyy]

SOLVED! at a cost..

I had to go with the nuclear option, that being to reinstall Windows.

I took the SSD out and put it into another computer to back up some important stuff, all went smoothly.

1. To fix the corrupted USB I just ran the Windows thing on it again.

2. When I went to install Windows, it said my drive needs to be GPT and not MBR.

3. I followed this guide but that involved wiping the whole drive.

4. In a comment on that video I saw someone suggesting to create the partitions manually, something I was hoping Windows would do.

5. Not trusting Windows, I did so according to this guide Method 2, Step 3. (Which I was unable to do before due to "not enough reclaimable bytes" supposedly.)

 

IT WORKS! All of my original data is gone but oh well, the price of Windows.

 

If you currently have this problem and this post just popped up in google, hi!